We are changing!
The Gloucestershire Constabulary Benevolent Fund (the Ben Fund) was established many years ago to provide support to serving and retired officers in times of need. Supported almost entirely by subscriptions from its members, the Fund affords its members critical and often much needed support in time of their greatest need and can assist in supporting officers’ wellbeing at critical moments in their career and life story.
The Fund has operated for many years as a Trust, run by a committee made up of serving and retired officers, who give up their time to help run this much needed resource.
Over recent years it has become clear to the committee that way in which the Fund operates and how it is governed, has long been due an overhaul.
To this end, members of the committee have been working towards the process of converting the Fund to hold Registered Charity status. This will mean many things for the Fund, primarily that it will fall under the governance and oversight of the Charities Commission. This will give the Fund a firmer legal foundation and with that will come increased oversight and accountability, and importantly transparency to it’s members.
It will also mean that as a Charity, the Fund will be able to benefit from Gift Aid and will be able to use its new status to find new ways to support you, it’s members. It will also allow us, in due course, to expand membership of the Fund to include police staff and Special Constables.
As part of the journey to becoming a Charity, the committee are required to put the proposal to a formal Extraordinary General Meeting. If you are a subscribing member to the Fund then you are entitled to attend that meeting – to hear more about what becoming a Charity means and to ask questions of the committee, and to vote on the proposal.
The Benevolent Fund EGM will be held at 7pm (on Wednesday 28th June at Churchdown Community Centre.
If you’d like to attend, I’d be grateful if you’d let me know at secretary@glospolbenfund.org so that we can manage the number of attendees.
Steve James
Secretary, Gloucestershire Constabulary Benevolent Fund
Chair, Gloucestershire Police Federation.