help needed

[Guest guest]

Hello Friends

This is a personal plea for help and support from Swingler- co

founder of Paains (Public Autism Awareness In North Somerset)

http://www.paains.org.uk

As an organisation Paains has been active for nearly 12 months now.

Many of you will be familiar with our web site and I know from our

mail bag and phone calls that the service/support we offer has helped

many people.

However this seems not to be enough

A while ago we sent an application to the charity commission in the

UK to apply for Charitable Status.

While this has not yet been declined we are told that there are

doubts as to whether or not the work of Paains is Charitable!!

The people we have helped and given inspiration to have found us via

the website, but the website we are told is not charitable. If our

application is declined then the website will fold. This would not be

for financial reasons but for legal ones.

We do a great deal of work at a local level. I personally have

attended conferences, given talks, visited schools with parents, and

given advice. My wife Jill has spent countless hours on the phone

talking to worried parents and re-living very traumatic times spent

with our own severely autistic son, just to offer support. All of

these things drive us on to continue to help others.

This is the part where we need your help to further our case.

We are being asked to provide evidence that our organisation helps

people. To use their words " we want to know who the beneficiaries are "

If you have used our site and either taken information from it that

has been helpful or found a link that has helped you.

Could you please take two minutes to tell us via e-mail.

I am reluctant to use the files of people we have helped directly

because I feel I owe them some privacy. I have no doubt that many

would help but would feel that I was betraying confidences to ask.

I hope that this " Petition " approach will be enough.

I am happy to answer further questions on our " plight " if you have

them and thank you for reading this long and spur of the moment

message.

Yours Dad to Jack aged 6

peter@...