Thank you to everyone who expressed an interest in becoming a community membership representative!

Campaigning is now underway and you can read each of the candidates' manifestos below.

If you're a community member, you're eligible to vote for your next representatives. You will be sent a prepaid envelope and ballot paper in the post at the start of September. Please return this to us no later than Friday, 17 September 2021.

Have questions about the process? Scroll down for a handy set of FAQs. Still not sure about something? Get in touch.

If you’d like to meet with (and quiz) this year’s candidates, you can join us at an upcoming Meet the Candidates event:

Friday 10 September 2021, 11am to 12pm
NAViGO Coffee House, 3-7 Brighowgate

If you can’t make it in person but would still like to attend and contribute, join us on Zoom!

The candidates

PAM BENDLE
SHERYL BROWN
CRAIG CHAMPION
JAMES CORK
ZACH KELLERMAN
RACHAEL OGLEY
COURTNEY PEET
KATHRYN THOMPSON
JOHN TUCKER

Frequently Asked Questions

Community representatives encourage membership involvement so representation is as broad as we can make it.

They also have a direct influence on how we develop our services, challenging decisions and making suggestions based on the feedback they’ve received from you – the membership.  They sit on Membership Board, vote on decisions that are taken there and can directly influence the direction of NAViGO.

Community representatives can be service users, carers or anybody within the local community who is passionate about mental health provision.

Their roles are wide-ranging, but include:

  • Raising awareness about current conversations and developments across NAViGO
  • Encouraging people to be involved in the membership and its activities
  • Having a broad knowledge of those they represent to effectively relay their views and opinions

Five community members will be elected as community representatives this year.

Those five community representatives will then decide as a group which of them will fulfil the role as community representative non-executive director (NED) on the main NAViGO board, CIC Board.

The NED has voting rights at CIC Board where more decisions about the direction of the organisation are made.

Community members vote to decide which of the nominees are elected as community representatives.

Each community member can vote for up to five candidates, though they do not need to use all these votes if they don’t wish to. You can only vote for each candidate once.

Not necessarily. And here’s where it gets a bit complicated, so bear with us!

The five community representative seats on the Membership Board are divided into four categories:

  1. Service users
  2. Carers
  3. Combined service users and carers
  4. Combined service users, carers and people with an interest in mental health

However, beginning this year, one of the seats will be reserved for the candidate of BAME background who achieves the highest number of votes. Depending on the category this person falls into, this will occupy one of the seats.

If there are no candidates from a BAME background the five seats will be allocated on the basis of total votes cast  as per the four categories listed above.

We’re committed to inclusion and diversity, and ensuring that we have equal representation across the membership and at board level.

The new reserved position for a community candidate of BAME background will guarantee representation for a proportion of the North East Lincolnshire community who are not currently engaging with our services or taking an active role in our membership process.

Introducing the additional BAME representative will give us a unique focus on the barriers that these communities face when accessing mental health support and allow us to challenge the inequalities within our community and beyond.

If there are no candidates from a BAME background the five seats will be allocated as per the four categories above.

All community representatives serve a term of two years.

After this, they can decide to nominate themselves for another two-year term. If elected again, they must step down after a four-year period.

Unfortunately, expressions of interest are now closed.

All community members had the chance to put themselves forward as a community representative between Wednesday 7 July and Tuesday 10 August.

The next election will be in 2023, so make sure you’re signed up to the membership if you’d like to stand.

You will be sent a prepaid envelope and ballot paper in the post, which will contain the names of all community representative candidates.

Complete the ballot by placing a ‘X’ next to the candidates you want to vote for. You can vote for up to five candidates, but you can vote for fewer than this if you wish.

Once you’ve made your choices, place the ballot paper in the prepaid envelope provided and then drop this into a postbox. We must receive your completed ballot paper by the deadline on Friday, 17 September, 2021.

The results of the community representative elections will be revealed at our Annual General Meeting on Tuesday, 28 September, 2021.

You can join us at Grimsby Auditorium for a day of activity or watch online via our YouTube channel.

Shortly after, we’ll confirm the results on the website and our social media channels.

BACK TO AGM 2021