Your rights as a Board member

If you’re Board member, you have a right to:

• support to take part in meetings
• money to pay for things you need to do the job, like travel or books
• training.

You also have the right to be part of an accessible Board.

When something is accessible, everyone can use it.

This might be:

• a place or a building
• transport
• a service
• information
• a website.

One of the best ways for organisations to make Boards and Committees accessible is to include people with disability.

They could do this by promising that a certain amount of people with disability need to be included.

For example, 20% of people on the Board or Committee need to be people with disability.

This means that if a Board or Committee has 10 members, at least 2 members need to be people with disability.

Organisations need to make sure the meetings are accessible to the members with disability.

They can do this by:

• letting members with disability have a support person in the meeting
• making sure members with disability get to share their thoughts and ideas
• sending out accessible agendas and information before the meeting.
  An agenda explains what will be talked about at a meeting
• having printed copies of the agenda at the meeting
• Giving members the option to join a meeting by videoconference using ZOOM or Skype.

You can learn more about using Skype to join meetings by downloading the Women with Disabilities Victoria Guide to Using Skype.

You can learn more about using ZOOM to join meetings by downloading the WWDA Guide to ZOOM meetings.