Should there be such a thing as an autistic union?

I'm in favour of one

The venue is the service. That’s why I specifically referred  to student unions and the model they have for doing things. Yeah student unions have things like bars and advice and counselling services. But the one service that gets used more than any other is the venue itself. The fact that a student can set up a club and their fellow students can come and enjoy it with them. There is absolutely no way most student clubs could run without being given free room space by their student union. That is the service, the clubs are a service but they are also something that would only exists when the autistic people turn up and try to run them.

so the service is being able to go to your Union and say ‘I want to run a club’ and have them help you set it up and give you a space to do it. And the service is also for the lazier people or the busier people who don’t have time to run the club to be able to come and join a pre-existing club that somebody else has made.

whatever special interest you might have, be it my little pony, or Goth fashion, of the cultivation of succulent plants, in all probability there is nowhere you can go nearby to indulge in that special interest with other people who share it. But there could be. If there is an autistic union there is nothing to stop you booking a room for a pilot session and getting the union to spam all the other members of the union about the pilot for your new club. And then if enough people interested you can have your goth fashion / my little pony / succulent Fanclub.

and if your fan Club doesn’t work out somebody else’s will. And hopefully with enough people there will be enough variety for everyone to find some sort of special interest of theirs  there is a club for that they can join in with.

Okay, now I'm very confused as to what you actually want to happen.  

There really is no point in opening a specific venue if you don't already have the services to fill it with.

Example: you want to run a support group for autistic people to socialise.  First get a few people together in a cheap venue (church halls are usually much cheaper than business or conference centres) and try it out to see how it works.  Build up a community and then you have evidence to show how it works so that you can gain sponsorship.

While it may be nice to have a venue like you suggest, I think that it's not necessarily the space that people need most at this stage, it's available services and support.  Helping autistic people get advice on employment, daily living, mental health, appropriate medical care, even something as simple as timely diagnostic services.  

My point is that we need to be the change we want to see in the world.  If something is missing, do what you can to help fill that gap. 

That's true. But tbh I just feel like that ought to be standard these days.

Sorry must have misunderstood. I thought there was a link because both of the groups I have suggested above are run by and for autistic people.

They seem like they only do collective 'advocacy' which I'd usually term political campaigning. Nothing wrong with that but not sure how it overlaps with this?

great idea

Great idea! Have you heard of Autistic UK or The Neurodiverse Self Advocacy Network? These organisations operate in a similar way to a union.

https://www.autisticuk.org/

https://ndsa.uk/content/

The that’s a somewhat chicken or the egg argument. Student unions have universities to start them off. Working men’s club start when there is a large business nearby with lots of employees. Churches tend to start by meeting inside peoples homes. I’m not adverse to the idea of opening my own home up but I don’t actually have my own home and a lot of autistic people don’t.

The only thing to bring the autistic people together is the service you say you first have to bring people together to justify

Sorry, I seem to have misunderstood.  I was thinking about a union as the people involved, not the building itself.  My suggestion was to set up one of the groups or support services that you want to see and try to help it grow.

It's the people that get things like this going, not the buildings.  All the groups you mention like student's union, working men's clubs, even the church started off with a few people somewhere small, and as their numbers grew they gathered more resources until they had enough to get their own facilities.  

No it isn't worth it. Other people with Big ideas would only corrupt and ruin it for us. 

One way you might go about trying to find a venue without having to actually spend money to lease or buy one, is to reach an arrangement with a sympathetic charity in the local area. if such a charity has a sizable amount of office space including One or more conference rooms it’s probably only in use from 9 to 5. If you could come to an arrangement whereby your organisation could have use of the conference rooms from six onwards provided you were responsible for keeping them in a good condition, you could effectively treat it like your own venue. But it does mean this organisation has to trust your volunteers enough to give them a key.

What you seem to be suggesting would be running a kind of reverse booking agency. Whereas the average booking agency would book a venue on your behalf and you would pay slightly more for the Service of having them make the booking arrangements for you The charitable booking agency would make a considerable loss by massively under charging you for the fees for the booking of the venue. I think doing things that way it would very soon end up being cheaper to just lease a building

I’m not sure I can think of any examples of groups that subsidise the use of a venue but don’t themselves own or Lease a venue. If a core part of your charitable model is going to be providing space at a subsidy or for free I doubt there is a cost-effective way to do it that doesn’t involve having a venue.

if you think about other organisations that offer a similar service, student unions, working men’s clubs, some old private members clubs, they all tend to own / lease their own property.

I think acquiring buildings like that takes a lot of funding.  What you need to do is start small groups in places like church halls or other cheap facilities, which you can build up and each member makes contributions to cover costs.  

Things like this grow organically.  It all starts with one person with a vision but it takes time and effort.  If it's something that you want and believe in, then maybe you could be the one to take the first steps to get it going.  

I think so yes. There's literally nothing out there for us and a union would be a start in the right direction, hopefully resulting in more support as well in the end.

Dropping this reply literally as I go upstairs so I'll rember to check back in tomorrow afetr sleep and such.