Unhappy Sunny Bank members meeting

The following is a letter from a Sunny Bank member.

"Our French hosts call it the fourth age. It is the time of life when proper dental care, adequate hearing aids, and effective spectacles add immeasurably to our joie de vivre, while regular check-ups at the Clinic reassure us. Sadly, that is when social security is not fully available, with only minimum percentages of these costs reimbursed. And that is even truer when it comes to finding - and paying for - some form of assisted retirement housing.

Historically Sunny Bank was a medical charity. The oldest expatriate charity of the Côte d’Azur, it is almost certainly the richest with 2 million euro of assets. But since the British Hospital in Cannes was sold, Sunny Bank has made no significant charitable contributions, conducted no charitable activity, nor helped its British and other English-speaking members in any significant way. Earlier this year when a short-stay respite scheme in a Maison de Retraite chosen by a suffering member was proposed, the Executive Committee rejected it.

Sunny Bank has cemented its relationship instead with one of the most profitable managers of Maisons de Retraite in France. Unfortunately the provisional contracts protect our French partner’s interests rather better than those of Sunny Bank’s members. Once these are signed, the bulk of Sunny Bank’s assets will be tied up for 30 years. The result will be a luxurious hospital costing residents a minimum, non-reimbursable 40,000 euro a year.

The Chairman and Executive Committee consider they have carte blanche to do what they wish. A group of Sunny Bank members have now succeeded in forcing a meeting of the full membership. This meeting will take place to discuss these issues in the Holy Trinity Church in Cannes at 5pm on January 15th 2007.

It is important that all existing and would-be members attend to vote on such a significant change in the structure and wealth of Sunny Bank." Russell Taylor, Mougins

For more information contact: cmorris1806@yahoo.com Tel: 04 94 40 91 41 russel.taylor@wanadoo.fr Tel: 06 99 50 87 19 maurice@elstub.com Tel: 06 71 47 11 35.