dale lane

The Companies Bill became The Companies Act 2006 last week. I’m technically (and somewhat scarily!) a company director, so it’s something that I need to be aware of, although I’ve got to admit that I’ve not followed the progress of this one as closely as I did the other recent Bill to be passed – Charities Act 2006.

This one is big. It’s apparently the largest Bill ever to go through Parliament. At one of the last debates on the Bill a couple of weeks ago, the amendments being discussed filled 319 pages so I shudder to think what the whole Act would look like if printed!

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I mentioned a couple of days ago how charities are increasingly becoming more business-like, or at least are keen to give the impression of this to support an image of professionalism. So, I thought it was worth pointing out that we’re no different!

It’s Annual Review time of the year again – with SYA having our Annual Awards Evening on Thursday and the Southampton Samaritans AGM next Monday. As part of the work for both, we’ve put together Annual Reports. And for the first time (for both), instead of doing it ourselves very simply with Microsoft Word, we’ve got a graphics design person to give it a glossy, professional look for us.

The finished products can be found here (SYA) and here (Samaritans). They look amazing, so much better than our efforts in previous years, and we owe a big thanks to the guys who did them.

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Samaritans provide a 24-hour helpline offering emotional support to anyone who wants to phone. How the 24-hour-a-day service is provided is soon to change.

At the moment, we take it in turns to do the ‘night shift’ – manning the phone from 11pm to 7am. Opinions on the night shift vary – Artangel offers an interesting perspective on what it’s like which is well worth a read. Samaritans websites mention it in various ways, such as this from Guildford branch:

…a night shift – manning the phones from 11 pm till 7 am next day. So if you see a colleague at work, a family friend or a neighbour looking a bit bleary eyed sometimes, perhaps that’s why. We are one of the few 24/7 charities in Britain – and thus callers are welcome equally at 3 pm and 3 am.

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A story on the Third Sector caught my eye this evening. It raises an interesting question – should charity trustees be paid for their work?

The Charity Commission has paved the way for wider payment of trustees by allowing one of Britain’s wealthiest charities to pay five of its 12 board members.

The current situation is well described by the article:

Charity law forbids trustees from receiving benefits without express authority from a clause in the governing document, from a court or from a Charity Commission ruling.

It’s perhaps a bit of a leap to assume that this latest case sets the sort of precedent that the article seems to see, but the principle is an interesting one.

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