Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007
Hello all
Please find below the latest update from the VCAG. Much of the meeting was spend reviewing terms of reference and the work of the VCAG – as a result I have been asked to include some questions for you. If you would like to respond to the questions below please do so by replying to this email. Try to keep it to the point and brief! I will then bring the responses to our next VCAG meeting in August for VE to review.
Regarding 2012, I understand the volunteering strategy is written and will be available on the 2012 website shortly so keep an eye out for it if you are interested. VE seem keen for Volunteer Centres to be at the heart of it and appreciate we may need some support to get there. They have therefore included some further questions - again if you would like to respond I will forward the responses on to VE. If anyone would like a full copy of the minutes please get in touch and I will forward them to you.
Best wishes
Charlotte
VCAG Representative South East
More…
Friday, March 16th, 2007
Hello all
Please find below the official summary of the last meeting. Also attached some info regarding V Base. We discussed the relationship between Volunteer Centres and CVSs – I think VE are aware that each organisation is different; some work really well, others less so! I forwarded the paper to you last week, but can I repeat that if your organisation or one that you know has an example of good practice please get in touch with me and I will feed in. A possible way forward discussed was to invite NAVCA to the next VCAG meeting so that we might discuss issues.
We also discussed the possibility of a discussion or bulletin board for VC managers, perhaps like UKVPMs. Rob Jackson is taking our thoughts back (that it should be simple, well promoted and easy to use by non IT specialists!) and may have something to present in a later meeting.
Regarding VC branding, we agreed a cut off date for free resources (headed paper etc) for newly branded VCs of 1st June, as the funding for this has now finished. More info available by emailing branding@volunteeringengland.org.uk. If any one would like the full minutes of the meeting I can email them to you.
Please note the new process is that instead of sending out the agenda before the meetings to you all, can you instead feed any thoughts to me about the issues up for discussion in the next meeting? (see below).
Best wishes
Charlotte
VCAG Representative South East
070315 Information on V-Base 3 for VCAG
Thursday, January 11th, 2007
Hello
Please find below the summary of the last meeting in December. It was a very busy meeting with a lot of issues to get through – so much so that the meetings have now been extended by an hour to accommodate everything.
The most interesting part was the discussion with Andy Forester and Meta Zimmeck on the Third Sector review. They stressed local decision making and not a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the suggested changes. Most positively, Andy said that by 148 Volunteer Centres,(the number mentioned in the submission to the Third Sector Review) what was actually meant was 148 Volunteering Agencies, or accountable bodies acting on behalf of Volunteer Centres. Please find some info attached.
All in all we all felt more optimistic after the meeting, particularly as we were assured about the flexibility of any future restructuring.
The other interesting part was a review of the VC marketing campaign. Although Jane and Jamie were keen to stress how successful the campaign had been in terms of raising awareness, neither I nor any of the other representatives had received any enquiries as a result.(Even though the campaign was targeted in my area, Kent) We passed on our comments to the marketing team who said they will take them on board.
Regarding VCQA – I went to a meeting yesterday at VE with the VCQA team and found it very positive, there will be a lot of small changes for the better, around clarification, guidance for us and a fairer system of scoring. We were reassured that any changes will be incremental and not major – there is definitely an appreciation of the time and resources we need to work through accreditation and the new team are keen to support us.
Please let me know if you have any questions or want anything raised at the next meeting.
Best wishes
Charlotte Osborn-Howard
Volunteer Centre Maidstone
VCAG Q&As Modernisation Fund