20 April 2007
Mr Peter MacDonald
Scottish Federation
Dear Peter
Thank you for your email yesterday addressed to Jenny, which has been forwarded to us for attention. We are sorry to hear of the ‘consternation’ that has been raised in Scotland recently and, obviously, would like to resolve the situation.
The Scottish Federation has Affiliated membership of the NKF as defined by the NKF Memorandum & Articles of Association – nothing has happened to alter that.
Scottish KPAs continue to benefit from Associate membership of the NKF by virtue of their membership of the Scottish Federation. In addition, some Scottish KPAs choose to hold full membership of the NKF as well – nothing has happened to change this.
The Executive Committee of the NKF is required by the NKF Memorandum & Articles of Association to hold elections amongst its membership to determine the composition of the committee for the following year. All that has happened this year is that no person in Scotland put there name forward in time to be elected. There were no candidates, therefore there is no person from Scotland on the Executive Committee.
The NKF would have welcomed a nomination from Scotland, indeed, we believe that the NKF is the poorer from not having such a person on the committee. The NKF is trying to increase and improve the relationship we have with Scotland all the time and regards the lack of a candidate as a serious setback that needs a remedy.
However, the Executive Committee does have power to co-opt, and indeed we would welcome someone from Scotland putting their name forward to be considered for co-option at our next Executive Committee meeting which is scheduled for 12/13 May.
All existing services offered by the NKF, including the services of Bob Dunn remain available to our friends in Scotland.
Regarding the Scottish Federation entry on NKF website, it would appear those who looked it up made some mistake as Scotland has its own place within the KPA pages which clearly show our relationship with the Scottish Federation – for clarification we are setting out the full website explanation below :-
*******website entry*********
About SKF
“The Scottish Kidney Federation was founded in 1976 (as the Scottish Federation of Kidney Patients’ Associations) and is registered Charity number SC007914. The Federation has similar objectives to the NKF and therefore affiliated to the NKF on 1st May 2000. The SKF has voting rights at NKF meetings. All Kidney Patient Associations which are affiliated to SKF are entitled to receive the full range of benefits that the NKF offers to its members except direct mailing of Kidney Life to patients homes and voting rights at NKF meetings. These benefits continue to be available to Scottish KPAs that hold membership of the NKF directly. Scottish KPAs are able to affiliate to both the SKF and the NKF. The affiliation of the SKF enables the NKF to continue representing the interests of all kidney patients within the United Kingdom. ”
We also understand that you have recently requested leaflets from NKF for which you have been charged. We would like to point out that this was nothing to do with SKF affiliation. It is NKF policy that all leaflets are charged for whether orders are from individual KPAs or hospitals as we do not having funding to cover this expense. No profit is made from the sale of leaflets, we only seek to cover our costs and postage.
We do hope the foregoing helps to clarify the situation and we look forward to hearing from you again shortly. If we can be of further help please do not hesitate to contact Jenny at the Worksop office or either of us.
Kind regards
Yours sincerely
Ray Mackey
Co-Chairman
Ken Tupling
Co-Chairman
| Cc |
Alison Blezard, Scottish Federation Ewen Maclean, Scottish Federation Mr Ian Kirk, Dumfries & Galloway KPA Mrs W Berston, Orkney KPA Mr Iain Smith, South East Scotland KPA |
The National Kidney Federation cannot accept responsibility for the views expressed by others in these letters pages.
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Last updated: 7 July 2008
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