Foreword Neil's Hello and welcome to the first You First of 2012.


In the last edition of the magazine I told you all about my excitement at joining CIC as our new Chief Executive.


As I’m sure many of you will know, when you start a new job you often have your own first impressions and ideas about how things could improve and develop. However, rather than simply making assumptions, I think it’s important to take the time to meet your colleagues and customers and to listen to what they have to say, so that you can get a true picture of life in your new organisation.


Because of this, one of my main priorities over the past few months has been to meet many of the people who are supported by CIC, the staff who work for us and the organisations who partner with our charity. These meetings have been invaluable, giving me a very positive sense of CIC and many new ideas.


In particular, it has been a real pleasure to visit our services across England and Scotland with some of my Executive Team colleagues, hearing the stories of our staff and the people we support and getting their feedback on life with CIC. It has been an inspiration to see first-hand the amazing work that goes on in our services and I’d like to thank everybody I have met for their wonderful hospitality.


It is this sense of inspiration that has really driven the Executive Team and me as we consider our plans for CIC in 2012-13 and beyond.


Over the past few months we have been looking at our charity and the care market in general to evaluate opportunities to enhance and develop the services CIC provides. The culmination of these efforts will be our 2012-13 Business Plan, which we will be launching soon and I hope to tell you more about this in the next edition of You First.


The pages of this magazine will give you just a sense of some of the dynamic work that I’ve witnessed since I have joined CIC: from championing inclusion and valuing the opinions of the people we support (p22), to advocating everyone’s right to dignity and respect (p20-21); supporting people to remember the happiest memories of their past (p10-11), to developing partnerships that give the people we support a better future (p19), You First showcases the best of CIC.


And whilst having been here for almost six months and feeling very much a part of life at CIC, compared to the staff who recently celebrated their 20th year of working for our charity (p9), I remain, in comparison, very much the new guy!


Until next time, Best wishes,


Neil Matthewman Chief Executive - CIC Group 2 | | www.c-i-c.co.uk


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24