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About us
Haringey Over 50s Forum purpose is to give older people a voice and to ensure that all their concerns are put and kept before the decision makers.
Our aim is
• To promote and involve ourselves with policies that benefit older people.
• To make sure Haringey Council and other public service bodies (e.g. NHS, TfL, GLA, the police) recognise and understands the needs of older people in the Borough.
Committee members maintain liaison with several Haringey and London-wide organisations, often through overlapping committee memberships, including:
Older People’s Reference Group, Adult Partnership Board, other Haringey pensioners’ groups, Social Care Alliance Haringey, Public Voice, Keep our NHS Public, Borough Transport Committee, Transport for All, Greater London Forum.

Volunteering Opportunities
We are looking for volunteers to join our Committee and help support our members and older residents in Haringey.
If you would like to use your skills and experience in committee work, events organising, and dialogue with public bodies and politicians, to help us with our work with older people in Haringey, we would love to hear from you!
If you are interested please send us an e-mail telling us about your interests and relevant experience, whether paid or unpaid), the reasons for your interest and details of two personal references to info@ho50s.org.uk.
If you would like an informal chat first please request contact with the Secretary, Anne Gray, via that e-mail, giving your phone number.

What is involved
These are unpaid positions which involve a committee meeting once every month or two, and wherever possible attendance at one or two meetings of the Forum in between. We have been running a film club and a coffee-and-chat session in a café, each once a month, plus monthly meetings with a speaker or discussion, usually about public service issues. We also try to keep in touch by phone with members whom we haven’t seen for a while to see if they are ok. So occasionally we will have phone rounds to ask people if they need help from various services that we can tell them about., or we might go have a cuppa with one or two housebound people to keep them in touch.

All committee members need to be able to send and receive e-mails. Those in officer roles need to have access to a computer for handling correspondence and documents – and for the treasurer and membership secretary, spreadsheets as well. For many of the organisations that we are repesented on, like the Greater London Forum for Older People and the Ageing Well Activity Group (a council/NHS liaison group) access to online meetings programs like Zoom or Teams will also be needed, whether on a computer, tablet or smartphone.

Posts we are seeking to fill

Secretary
• Share leadership of the organisation with the Chair.
• Advise the Chair on preparation of meeting agendas and provide copies of the agenda to all committee members.
• Take minutes of meetings, distribute them and archive them as an effective record of proceedings and decisions which can be clearly understood and referred to in future.
• Report to the next committee meeting on the progress of actions and the result of decisions.
• Deal with correspondence; write letters or e-mails as agreed at committee meetings, summarise correspondence/e-mails received at the next committee meeting and draft replies as appropriate.
• Lead compilation of content for the newsletters which we send every two months, invite and edit contributions from other committee members and/or the wider membership.
• Produce draft newsletter ready to check and print/photocopy, in conjunction with the Assistant Secretary or other volunteers.
• Be available to co-sign cheques as one of the three signatories recognised by the bank (2 out of 3 must sign).

Membership/assistant secretary
• Take minutes at any meeting which the secretary is unable to attend
• Keep records on computer of the membership list.
• Report to committee regularly on membership numbers and progress of subscription renewals.
• Issue membership cards and renewal reminders.
• Oversee proof reading, photocopying and dispatch of the newsletter by e-mail and (to members without e-mail) by paper mail, with the help of the Secretary and other volunteers from the committee. (This will involve some envelope stuffing and possibly bulk e-mailing).
• Liaise with treasurer about keeping subscription records up to date and noting payments on the membership list as the treasurer receives them or notes credits to the bank account.

Website and social media assistant
• Research new web site content, inviting suggestions from other committee members.
• Liaise with webmaster to mount new content and carry out updates (of events list, notices of forthcoming meetings, photos etc.)
(Webmaster is currently a volunteer. We should like to have more web-design and updating skills within the committee, and to find someone who has the know-how to do this).
• Explore use of Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram etc, and also local NextDoor and similar online groups, to disseminate and promote the Forum’s activities and to bring members together.

Event organiser and fund-raiser
• Work towards setting up the Forum as a registered charity as soon as possible, probably within the next 12 months. Some external expert support will be available to help with this. (Charity status will greatly enhance our prospects of grant funding from several sources).
• Monitor various information sources for opportunities to apply for external grants and take the lead in making applications where appropriate, with help from other committee members and if necessary with external support.
• Take forward suggestions for public meetings, discussion meetings, AGM and social events made by the committee; identify and book venues, take the lead to organise on-the-day logistics for meetings (sound, documents, chairs, keys, posters or way signs, tea and biscuit supplies etc) with help from other committee members.
The film club, if and when re-started, will be assisted by Haringey Circle in these ways and also by taking bookings for the limited space in which we have film showings.
• Suggest and carry out small fund-raising activities and collections (e.g. raffles, book swaps, cake baking etc.) – taking the lead to organise and support other committee members in a team effort.
• Write web content relating to events and meetings, and work with web site and social media assistant to publicise.
• Write newsletter content about forthcoming events and fund-raising activities.