I would like to apologise to anyone offended by us not being present at the Rainbow Fund Grant Awards ceremony. This was certainly not deliberate rudeness or an intended snub to the Rainbow Fund or the LGBT community and nor was it motivated by any particular mindset that this letter accuses us of.
Here at Switchboard we certainly do not prefer to stand apart or aloof – in fact we work closely with a number of other organisations in the city to make life better for our LGBT communities, e.g. MindOut, Allsorts, Rise’s LGBT Domestic Violence project, THT, Sussex Police’s LGBT Liaison Officer, and additional non-LGBT services supporting them to meet the needs of their LGBT service users, e.g. Mankind, The Carer’s Centre, The Fed and a number of older peoples services in the city.
Both myself and our chair (Maria) received the invitation to the ceremony on November 13 – both myself and Maria were unable to attend due to us both having regular work commitments on Tuesday evenings – unfortunately between November 15 and 25 I was unwell and off sick from work and Maria was on holiday. This meant that the invitation was not circulated amongst our trustees, staff and volunteers until the day before the event. At that point when I returned to work I did my best to get somebody to represent us at the event – however with such short notice no-one was available to attend. Our non-attendance was therefore purely circumstantial – as a small charity with very few staff and relying on volunteers, capacity issues are sadly a reality.
I am saddened and confused by the fact that Chris Cooke seeks to attack our long standing LGBT charity in the press rather than seek the facts from us first – talking to us would have demonstrated much better team working!
I would like to say how much we appreciate the funds raised by the Rainbow Fund to support our LGBT communities and how helpful the £2500 grant we were awarded for our counselling service will be for the many people this service supports. It goes without saying that we will of course endeavour to be present at next years event!
Natalie Woods
Director, LGBT Switchboard
Chris Cooke has confirmed to Gscene that before putting pen to paper he tried to call Switchboard to ask why they did not turn up or RSVP the invitation but no one answered the phone.
