Membership subs due

Member Stations and Associate Members of the Hospital Broadcasting Association are reminded that their 2013/14 membership subscription is now due. The annual subscription for Members Stations is £45 and for Individual Associate Members is £15. For more information, please contact Grant McNaughton, HBA's Membership Manager.

Watch the 2013 Awards Online

You can now watch the 2013 National Hospital Radio Awards on the HBA youtube channel.

http://youtu.be/TIY7Droj4W0

Photos Available For Download

If you are planning a press release following your win in this years National Hospital Radio Awards, the photographs can be downloaded at print quality from the following location: http://sdrv.ms/WW7ZgY
You are free to use the images but please credit Andy Langford as the photographer.

Winners Announced!

The winners are now online in the Awards Section of this website along with the audio from the winning entries

Charity Commission partnership

The Charity Commission for England and Wales has today launched its "Partnership Programme" - see its press release.

HBA is one of the 29 umbrella organisations that have been announced as partners at today's launch of the programme.

Over the coming months, HBA will be working with the Commission to develop co-branded advice & guidance on running a charity, and model governing documents.

A representative of the Commission is also planning to attend our national conference in Blackpool in March, where he will:

(a) explain about the new Charitable Incorporated Organsiation form of a charity, which gives many of the benefits of being a company limited by guarantee without the need to transform your charity into a company;

(b) be available to answer any individual questions or queries you may have.

Small Charitable Donations

As a result of the Gift Aid and small cash donations survey conducted amongst members earlier this year, HBA was able to submit some compelling written evidence to the House of Commons Committee considering the Small Charitable Donations Bill.

HBA's Secretary, Nigel Dallard, was subsequently invited to verbally brief the Shadow Minister for Civil Society, Garath Thomas MP, on the details of the implications of the Bill for small local charities such as hospital radio stations, and to provide some case studies with which Mr Thomas could illustrate his arguments.

As a result of all of this, the HBA, Chichester Hospital Radio, Radio Nightingale (Rotherham), Radio Northwick Park (Harrow) and Winchester Hospital Radio were all mentioned in Parliament on 23rd October 2012. Later on in the debate, much was made of the £10m per year of fraud that HMRC detect each year in Gift Aid claims (1% of the £1bn of claims). This figure emerged as a result of a Freedom of Information request that HBA made earlier in the year to inform the drawing-up of HBA's written evidence, with much coverage of the disclosure being provided at the time by the civil society sector press (e.g. Civil Society and Third Sector).

You can read what the Shadow Minister had to say, and/or you can watch him speaking.

PASC Evidence Published

HBA's written evidence to the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee's formal Inquiry into Regulation of the Charitable Sector and the Charities Act 2006 has today been published on Parliament's website.