An Introduction to the NABD

Appologies for the lack of a Chairman’s Chunk in Issue 94 of Open House, which was published online in early December 2019. I have been suffering some quite severe health problems since September 2019, which left me fit for nothing.

I even missed two of our monthly National Committee meetings, which brings my total of NC meetings missed over the past 29 years to about eight. (Must try harder...)

My health has improved somewhat since the New Year, though it is still quite hard to motivate myself into tackling my huge backlog of work and poor old Vic Hawkes (Club Liaison and Open House Editor) has had to badger me for weeks to get this Chairman’s Chunk written.

My somewhat prolonged illness has also resulted in me still not being quite up‐to‐date with the daily business of the NABD, though I doubt that the Association has suffered too much because both Ian Taylor (Vice Chairman) and Julie Williams (Office Manager) have been truly stalwart in taking up the slack left by my absence. However, my not being fully up‐to‐date means that this Chairman’s Chunk may be a little limited in its content. Hopefully I’ll be back to better form for the next issue of Open House.

Open House Magazine: Though there have been some initial teething problems with getting the online issues of Open House published on time, both Vic Hawkes (Editor) and Simon Freedman (Webmaster) have worked very hard to get everything running smoothly.

Both Issue 93 and Issue 94 are available online at, https://issuu.com/thenabd/docs which can also be reached by clicking the link in the ‘Open House’ section of the NABD website front page at www.nabd.org.uk

It would appear that the message about us now having only one commercially printed issue of Open House per year, with that issue and three more being published online each year, has begun to get to all members and a growing number of supporters.

A small number of members, who do not have easy access to the internet, have requested printed copies of the online‐only issues and these have been printed off at the office and posted to the members concerned.

Sadly, one member has decided not to renew his membership because of our reluctant decision to only print and post one issue per year to members. I can only reiterate that the NABD could simply no‐longer sustain the cost of having four issues per year commercially printed and posted to members at a current cost of £18,000.00 per year. Our stark choice was to increase membership fees significantly during a time where many people with disabilities are getting financially squeezed more than ever before, which would inevitably lead to a swingeing loss