Fri 2 Oct 2015 In: New Zealand Daily News View at Wayback View at NDHA
Body Positive chair Ashley Barratt A claim by the chair of Body Positive that concerned funders had been ringing the organisation asking questions prompted by a members' no confidence in the board petition appears to be untrue. The chair of the HIV-positive people's support and advocacy organisation, Ashley Barratt, made the claim earlier this week in an interview with GayNZ.com Daily News. It came after he had earlier said that the closure of BP's Wellington office and cutting back its Auckland office space were due to funding from the organisation's sources being insecure. However, a highly placed and credible source at Body Positive yesterday advised us that there had been no queries received from any of the organisation's funders. The source suggested it was possible that Barratt was in some way referencing questions which are understood to have been put to the Minister of Health regarding the issue. GayNZ.com immediately sought clarification from Barratt but he this morning asked us to instead contact BP's Executive Director, Mark Fisher. Fisher was not in the office today and has not responded to our attempt to contact him. GayNZ.com understands there is mounting frustration amongst signatories regarding the board's handling of their no confidence petition by which they had hoped to force the resignation of the board with an election for a replacement board to be immediately called.