Autistic Radio and Autistic Association Charity Open Meeting 2025 December 01

Autistic Radio and the Charity formed by Autistic People Autistic Association have open meetings every week.

Radio Days 2025 27 28 29 30 December

Grant from Scottish Autism not received as expected

Jane Kennedy not replying to any contact.

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Short 8 Minutes

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Episode Transcript

Jules-AutisticRadio.com (00:00):
Welcome to Autistic Radio, the open meeting of
Autistic Radio and Autistic Association.
The charity that we as autisticpeople set up for ourselves is
sponsored by autistic Jules becausethis is a project worth investing in.
It's the 1st of December and we'renow looking forward to our annual

(00:21):
event, radio days, four daysbetween Christmas and New Year.
Where we broadcast live on differentplatforms, , make different recordings.
Have a 4, 4, 4 drop inevery day for an hour.
Have a 5, 5, 5 spectrum voiceswhere Harry goes through his

(00:43):
post on the autistic radio com.
Facebook page.
So they are the normal things that wedo for autistic radio every year in the
lull between Christmas and New Year.
The time when sometimes everybodyelse having family and friends and

(01:05):
collections around them can be, , adifficult thing for us as autistic people.
A, a respite from that.
, And somewhere that's safefor us to talk about.
Anything, even if it'snot Christmas related.
How do people feel?
Are they looking forwardto doing this this year?

Lucy-Autie-Unmasked (01:23):
I had a bit of reticence last year.
, , I was still fresh outtathe box and new to this.
, When the radio days came up, , I was kindof a little bit swamped I didn't actually,
, participate as much as I'd like to.
So I'm, I'm glad to have the opportunity,to actually be part of that again,
now that I've found my feet and I'mconfident to speak, , it's something that.
I think is really valuable, uh,because I will be, you know, estranged

(01:45):
from family this year as well.
, And yeah, I think it's, it's goingto be a really interesting, something
that, that can kind of distractme over the Christmas period.

Harry-Autistic-Association.org: I'm looking forward to it again. (01:54):
undefined
, Enjoy the fact that we havethese, because it's a strange time
between Christmas and New Year.
You kinda forget the, the days.
The dates.
That week itself, , seemsto be lost in time.
It seems to be a running kinda jokeor running meme, even on social media

(02:16):
about how long it feels for many people,and it certainly felt that way to me.
So to have four days, includingdoing a Facebook catch up.

Jules-AutisticRadio.com (02:27):
Somebody in the text is saying it always
feels like a Sunday on those daysbetween Christmas and New Year.
So it's the 27th, 28th, 29th,30th, straight after Boxing Day.
Um, we've got four hours a day.
I'll do a couple of hours whereI introduce and broadcast.

(02:50):
Live to Facebook and LinkedIn and I'lleven add Pod Beam in and uh, YouTube in.
So people might find us andlisten to us live like that.
That happened quite a lot last year.
, If we think of anything else we want toadd into that, we've got four weeks and

(03:10):
we can just put it , into the calendar.
Now everybody knows that.
We were expecting to receive anoffered grant from Scottish Autism
to encourage our radio days broadcastbetween Christmas and New Year.
They contacted us last year becausethey recognized that what we were

(03:32):
doing was a service to autistic people.
Um, you could say it comes undertheir umbrella of suicide prevention.
That , if people have, in thosedays where nothing else is happening
and most services are closed,if they have somewhere to chat

(03:52):
things over, it's less likely forthem to move to suicide ideation.
However, it's 12 months nowsince we were offered this grant.
Uh, without pestering the personwho confirmed in an email that
they were offering a grant,I have continued to contact.

(04:16):
I have emailed nice emails,and I have sent out feelers by
phone, by text to their mobilephone, and there's no response.
I wonder if the politics of themain charity here in Scotland
.Affected what was a new person in their staff offering this so that

(04:40):
they've actually retracted their offer,but nobody wants to deal with it.
Nobody wants to respond and tell us why.
In business, what I would normally do atthis stage I would set up a small claims
, in the local court and bring the personto us to communicate by making a legal.

(05:02):
Claim, in this case it wouldbe a legal claim that they,
they offered us something.
I took that offer and spent thatmoney and now I'm out of pocket.
It's the first time I'vediscussed this with anybody.
, How do people feel about that?
Because it's ratherclosing off that channel.
If you sue , the local, , charityto make a point or to get

(05:24):
information, it's unlikely thatthey'll ever deal with us again.
But.
Do we think that theyever would deal with us?
Do we care?

Lucy-Autie-Unmasked (05:32):
I mean, they're not dealing with us now.
Um, that's what I'm thinking is that,is this just gonna happen next time?
The next time?
Or you, are you always gonna be on thehook waiting for them to come back to us?
Or do we take some affirmative actionand ask, you've really gotta tell us
now because it's, it is important.
If they're gonna give us a grantor something towards what we
do and to our charity, then.

(05:55):
That is an important thing.
So we need to know if that's, that'sa lifeline that's been cut off or
whether there that will be dealt with.
So, yeah, I mean, I'd be tentative butto do it, but I think maybe eventually
that would be a, a, a thing, so atleast they answer some questions.

Harry-Autistic-Association.org: The thing I don't understand, (06:12):
undefined
there's the logic behind this.
, They don't come out ofthis very well at all.
And from what you've talked aboutthere, Jules, it's actually made us.
It's putting us in a position and he says,you've been in, you haven't pestered,
but you've been in regular enough contact, which would be the normal thing to check

(06:32):
what's going on and for it to be totalradial silence on it is unacceptable.
Don't offer it.
Don't do that to, I thinkwhat's really frustrating is
they do it to autistic people.
They shouldn't do it to anybody, butthey do it to autistic people, the
people they're supposed to be helping.
That lack of understanding of how thatcan affect autistic person or autistic

(06:55):
people in an artistic organization.
You know, you know, it's quitedamaging . I'm not sure what
the state forward is, but it iscertainly questions need to be asked.

Jules-AutisticRadio.com (07:05):
In the text, Ray has described the, , radio days
as community care and Lucy's textthat she agrees with there, there.
Harry, I'll quickly read the.
Last email to JaneKennedy Scottish Autism.
Dear Jane, it was lovely toreceive your confirmation that
Scottish autism is granting us,uh, some of money six months ago.

(07:26):
Following this, I made the purchaseof equipment and distributed them
to a number of members that neededupgrades to Windows 11 before the
deadline of Windows ten's retirement.
I have paid for this outta myown household budget and waited
for your funds to arrive.
Please confirm to me that I willbe receiving the promised funds.
The radio days event will be the27th, 28th, 29th, 30th of December.

(07:50):
Those dates coincide with a spikein suicide ideation when other,
when other services are closed.
We hope that Scottish autism mightsee that our cultural activities
are aligned with their own valuesand complimentary over time.
Would it be possible to receivethe grant in time for the
event that it helped to enable?
Also, is it appropriate during thefour days to regularly broadcast that

(08:13):
Scottish Autism sponsored the event?
Best regards, Jules.
Sounds fair enough to me.
, I sent that and no, Ihaven't received a reply.
I will follow up by ringing theiroffice , to leave a message for the person
to say, have you received the email?
But other than that, I don'tintend to follow it up or nag them.

(08:34):
Same with that.
Okay guys, I'll take this upnext week at the next meeting.
And now we'll move to our recordingwith, , Debbie Austin, the parent
of an autistic person who comes intothe, , profoundly disabled category.

Spectrum Voices (08:48):
We speak our words, we listen, we speak our words, we listen.
We speak our words.
We listen.
We speak our words.
We listen.