Extracts from Forest Voluntary Action Forum ‘Focus’ Newsletter September 2008.

 

Local issues

 

The well reported success for the District in securing significant resources from the Rural Development Programme for England will provide further opportunities for enhancing the Forest of Dean as a place to live, work and visit. With a strong commitment to Sustainability already within the proposals we will seek to ensure that Diversity and Social Inclusion are also key components. FVAF has produced a checklist for the Forest of Dean Partnership that we hope will provide clear guidelines for all activity delivered through the Partnership as part of the Community Plan. We are committed to ensuring that ’Difference’ is seen as an asset and not a threat.     

 

For full details of the Community Plan go to www.fdean.gov.uk under Forest of Dean Partnership.

 

The Project Board for the proposed Social Enterprise (SE) for Health and Social Care in the Forest of Dean are close to registering a Community Interest Company with communitywide share ownership and a commitment to providing services locally. Whilst much work remains to be done on how such an organisation might look this represents an important step. 

 

Does your group deliver services in the health or care sector? Are you enthused, concerned or simply interested in the effect the social enterprise may have on your work? If ‘Yes’ to any of the above then please note the following   Forest of Dean Social Enterprise for Health and Social Care – Opportunity or Threat’?   Wednesday November 19th at 2pm (refreshments at 1pm)   Belle Vue Centre, Cinderford All most welcome –please RSVP

 

County issues

 

The County Local Area Agreement (LAA) continues to provide much of the focus at County level. The two areas of the LAA that particularly affect the voluntary sector relate to :

 

·        increasing the number of people who regularly volunteer

and

·        creating an environment for a thriving voluntary sector

 

Initial outcomes indicate we are well on track with achieving the first target on volunteering – this is great news primarily because it means more people are recognising that what they do is volunteering and helping others and also because some additional resources may be forthcoming to support volunteering. The second target is more difficult to measure (these things need a baseline so improvements are clearly seen) and we will continue to work to ensure the targets are realistic and the work needed to achieve them is resourced. To this end there is an event in November that will help develop this work – FVAF will be attending.

 

Delivering an Environment for a Thriving Third Sector: Successes and Challenges Wednesday 5th November 9:30-1:30pm at City Works in Gloucester   Contact FVAF for more details or look on the www.gloshub.org.uk website

 

 

Also remember to subscribe to or look at the Gloshub weekly bulletin for all countywide information. Gloshub is a website for the voluntary and community sector across Gloucestershire and provides lots of information in a concise format. Go to www.gloshub.org.uk 

 

The Gloucestershire Infrastructure Group has now had confirmation of its funding for the ‘Brave New World’ project. This will be managed by our colleagues at Cooperative Futures in Gloucester and will provide development opportunities on accessing investment, managing finances, monitoring and evaluation, procurement, tendering, commissioning, structures and borrowing. More details will be available soon and we hope many Forest based groups can benefit from this project.

 

It’s good to see a huge emphasis on the development of services for Children and Young People (although if you are directly involved you may feel swamped by the e-traffic and paperwork!). A new development worker has been appointed, based in Gloucester, to provide a link between the statutory bodies (primarily the County Council) and the Voluntary sector. A consultation meeting on the Children and Young People’s Plan (CYPP) for 2009/12 will be held at Forest Hills Golf Club on the 15^th October for all stakeholders – look at the Gloshub website for full details or contact FVAF

 

Organisations that work with or for children and young people may be aware of the introduction of the ContactPoint database, due to be introduced from October.  This national system will provide a single point of reference for practitioners who need to find out which other agencies and services are working with a child or young person. A briefing session on the system will be held at the GAVCA offices in Gloucester on October 17^th am – FVAF will be attending. Again more details from the Gloshub website or the FVAF office.

 

And finally on the theme of Childrens services there will be a  session on Children in Need funding on 29^th September at the  GAVCA office from (0930-1230)

 

It is well recognised that although a considerable amount of training provision is made by the County Voluntary Sector there is relatively little co-ordination between providers and opportunities for securing resources may be being missed.  This is, of course, part of the wider issue of commissioning, tendering and contracts and FVAF will work to ensure opportunities that may benefit local groups are not missed. To help this process an initial meeting to look at a County Learning consortium will be held on September 15^th and FVAF will be represented. We hope this will improve services across the county.

 

The Rural Renaissance programme is changing focus towards greater productivity rather than just numbers of jobs created by projects – this may be an ongoing theme for other funding streams. One of the currently funded programmes is for the ProHelp project based at Gloucestershire Rural Community Council. If your group needs professional advice (architect, accountant etc) then they may be able to find a company who will help for free – contact GRCC on 01452 528491.

 

FVAF matters

 

 

Forest Voluntary Action Forum   Annual General Meeting   Belle Vue Centre, Cinderford   Friday October 24th   12noon refreshments – 1pm AGM   Guest Speaker – Zehra Zaidi – FVAF trustee and champion of young people and diversity issues   All welcome - RSVP

 

FVAF is pleased to be able to report that membership for the year 2008 is now approaching 100 members.  This represents a continued high level of support for our work for which we thank everybody. Please remember that membership entitles you to the full range of FVAF services including equipment hire, subsidised training, reference library and photocopying as well as our core work of guidance, support, representation and information.

 

Total number of attendees at the Food Safety training run by FVAF now exceeds 230. This includes almost 200 volunteers from over 40 groups. Our funding for this phase of the work was for 200 volunteers so we are actively seeking additional resources to continue what is a really successful project.     The courses are made up of volunteers, who have attended for free, and paid staff for whom a nominal charge is made. Courses booked for 2008 are at Newent and Tidenham.  Our thanks to Oldbury Community funding and Robert Ensors for their support.  Contact Pat Nixon for more details of these courses.

 

We are also continuing to organise 1^st Aid appointed person training. This training is charged at cost (£34 per person) and to date over 80 attendees have benefited.  Does anybody else wish for this training? Confirmed courses for 2008 are at Huntley and we hope to arrange a course for the Tidenham area. Contact Pat Nixon at FVAF for full details.

 

For any other training needs please contact FVAF. We are particularly keen to hear from any group wishing for development in financial management, policy development, and diversity / equality training. We also continue to provide free ‘Roles and Responsibilities’ development session for committees. Contact FVAF for full details – time, place and duration all to suit your needs

 

Various pieces of work are taking place looking at the needs and ways of supporting Carers. FVAF has been involved in a small project working with Crossroads and can vouch for how difficult this area of work is. Our success was hard won and we will fully support any future activity.

 

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act allows an offence to be ignored once a stipulated period of time has passed free of any further convictions. Once the offence is ‘spent’ it no longer has to be declared when applying for most types of jobs. For adults the rehabilitation period is 5 years for most non-custodial sentences, 7 years for sentences up to 6 months and 10 years for sentences up to 30 months. However, Criminal Records Bureau Checks will still report spent convictions and care must be exercised in both requesting and acting upon CRB checks. Of course for many employed and volunteer roles CRB checks are essential – but we must all guard against losing good staff or volunteers if it can be avoided.

 

Many of you will have seen the recent advertisements regarding rules on migrant workers with the new licences and the need to sponsor the new employee. Whilst these regulations do not apply to the European Economic Area (EU + a few others) we must all be vigilant – and don’t forget that volunteering also requires the volunteer to be legally residing in the UK.  

 

 

 

 

 

££££££££££££   FUNDING NEWS   ££££££££££££

 

 

 

National Lottery funding – now through the Big Lottery continues and the new this year Community Spaces programme is especially interesting. Essentially to support groups to establish publicly accessible green spaces (parks, gardens, woodlands, ponds, play areas etc) the programme is open to application until 2011. Any ideas? Go to www.community-spaces.org.uk for more information on how to apply.

 

The Olympic Games in Beijing made for some great moments in sport and nobody doubts the efforts made by the athletes. However, we must all be aware of the impact the Olympics have made and will continue to make to Voluntary Sector funding through the Lottery. Along with every area in the country the Forest has lost some hundreds of thousands of pounds of potential funding and our movement must maintain vigilance to ensure the general Lottery pot is not revisited for more funds before 2012!!

 

 The Gloucestershire Association for Disability makes small grants to both individuals and groups to help people live with disability. Phone 01452 883060 or go to www.gadgrant.btik.com for more information

 

The St Monica Trust fund is still open for applications until September 30^th. Their themes for this round of funding are Older People (over 55) and Substance Misuse. Contact Kate Stobie on Kate.Stobie@stmonicatrust.org.uk 0117 949 4003 or for full details.

 

‘Various Opportunities for Volunteers’ programmes are still open for applications. Primarily to support Department of Health priorities there are a number of National Agencies who each lead on an area of the programme,

eg disability, visual or hearing impairment, homelessness etc. Contact FVAF for more information.

 

 

and finally :-

 

Lawworks provides free, non-urgent legal advice (where there is no court or employment tribunal involvement) for groups unable to afford such professional support. Contact www.lawworks.org.uk for more information

 

You could benefit from technology donations provided by Microsoft, Cisco and Symantec. Go to www.ctxchange.org for more information

 

The UCRC in Cinderford have office space to let – there are a total of 7 rooms and they would prefer just 1 or 2 tenants but contact Tricia Bonser on 01594 823984 for full details

 

If you have an issue or project that might be transformed by the involvement of young volunteers then why not contact ITV Fixers. They have lots of young people willing to help get involved in the project, make a presentation about it (up to £650 available to help with funding) and get it shown on the ITV online service – maybe also the network news bulletins. Go to www.itvlocal.com/itvfixers 

 

If your group runs Fairtrade events or use Fairtrade refreshments then the Co-op may be able to give a 10% discount on the Fairtrade products at local Co-op stores . Contact Anne.Jennings@co-operative.coop for full details

 

A Clinical Research organisation, based in Ledbury, is currently looking for volunteers between the age of 50 and 70 to participate in a study looking at age associated memory impairment. Transport to and from Ledbury can be arranged. Contact Deidre Thom on 01531 637400 or mail on deirdre.thom@sequani.com

 

And finally two awards to note. The Queens Award for Voluntary Service (previously awarded to the Forge, Forest Fitness Centre and Sheppard House in Newent) is always open for nominations, Contact FVAF or go to www.queensawardvoluntary.gov.uk if you feel your group is worthy of nomination. The GlaxoSmithKline Community Health Awards for work in a health related field are open for nomination until September 26^th. Go to www.kingsfund.org.uk/gskimpactawards - prizes up to £35000 on offer!!