Formerly known as the Spastics Society: The importance of charity names

[Northerner]

It's 20 years since The Spastics Society renamed itself Scope. Other disability charities have changed their names since. But in disability, what is a good name for a charity?

In 1994 Blur and Oasis were slogging it out for the Britpop crown, Don't Forget Your Toothbrush was the hot TV show, John Major was our prime minister and people with cerebral palsy were still referred to as spastics.

Valerie Lang was on the executive council of the Spastics Society at the time. She has cerebral palsy and had been passionate about a name change for years before it eventually happened. "I felt that we could not afford to stay with the name we had," she says. "The name spastic was a playground term of abuse. Children would shout to each other 'You big spastic' every time someone was clumsy or even if they just disagreed with them.

"Mothers with young babies who had cerebral palsy weren't seeking help from the society because they had heard the word used in playground parlance. I think it put the younger generation off."

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[Copepod]

I understand the need to change name from Spastics' Society to Scope and the value to Scope and people with cerebral palsy.

However, that name change caused problems for other charities - at the time, I was involved with a small charity called Scope, which provided activity holidays for adults with disabilities and health problems, and children from disadvantaged backgrounds. The need to choose a new name, plus waste of existing material and need to reprint items, cost a lot of money, a very high % of income in a small charity. All of which was caused by actions of a bigger, more wealthy charity.