 Merger news: what happens next posted: 26 January 2010
Carr-Gomm clients will be aware that the organisation is seeking to secure the future of its services by merging with another organisation later this year. We announced recently that the merger partner would be one of three organisations (from an original list of seven): Richmond Fellowship, Sanctuary Housing Group, or Home Group – Stonham.
By the end of March 2010 a preferred partner should have been finalised. Before the Board makes its decision there is a lot of ground to cover and clients will be involved in this as much as possible. An important step at this stage was to get a feel for what is most important to clients. Because time was short we were only able to allow a week for people to tell us but nevertheless we had 230 responses!
The results were very close, indicating that clients think that all 3 of the following are very important:
- Being financially strong and good at running services efficiently - 35%
- Delivering high quality and client-focused services - 35%
- Sharing Carr-Gomm's values and way of doing things - 30%
A variety of comments were received too, mostly saying things like these:
- ... change ...affects my mental health. I hope whoever it is has the same ideas and ways of doing things.
- We should merge with a charity that puts people first...
- ...both [of the first two options] important - without cash you can't do the second...
- I want to make sure I still get the same amount of support...
Our thanks to every single one of you who took part.
What happens next?
There will be Exhibition Days on 17th February in Manchester and 24th February in London where some clients will be able to come to meet the potential merger partners and ask questions/provide feedback. As well as this there will be a number of other fact-finding events, including:
- Reciprocal visits between offices and services for clients, staff and Board Members,
- Presentations by the organisations to the client panel,
- Meetings between Carr-Gomm clients and those of the other organisations, and
- Mystery shopping by clients and staff.
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