People in Lower Gornal have rallied, mobilised and rolled up their sleeves to reopen the Friday night youth club at Lower Gornal Youth Centre, and I’ve really enjoyed supporting them to make it happen!
small groups
DY1-stop shop: Open door for anyone involved or wanting to be involved in community initiatives, charities or enterprises
On Wednesday 2nd March, Eileen and I are launching DY1-stop shop! We’ll be throwing open DY1’s doors to anyone who wants to chat through anything to do with:
- Setting up a project or group – information and guidance on how to get started, what routes you could take, how to get support
- Running a charity or voluntary organisation – you might want information on leading an organisation, responsibilities of being a trustee, compliance, help with rules and paperwork, finance, planning
- Recruiting and supporting people to help run your group or activities – you might be looking for volunteers or helpers to make great things happen
- Getting more active in your community – you might be interested in volunteering, joining local groups, clubs and organisations
- Connecting with other organisations
Whether you’re from an existing voluntary group, charity or social enterprise, or you’d like to do more to support your community, come along to get your questions answered, generate ideas and feel supported all over a friendly cuppa!
Drop in on us anytime between 10am and 1pm in the coffee shop area of DY1, Stafford Street, Dudley, DY1 1RT. This will continue on the first Wednesday of every month.
We’re looking forward to meeting you there!
Future in safe hands: working with Dudley Youth Council
As everyone’s winding down for Christmas, I’ve been thinking about things I’m looking forward to in the new year when I come back to work re-energised. One group I’m really excited to be working with more closely is Dudley Youth Council.
Andrew Mullaney – a great connector
Bright and early on a Tuesday morning at the end of last month, Eileen and I met for coffee with Andrew Mullaney, who is Dudley’s first ever Business Connector, seconded from Lloyds Bank to Business in the Community’s Business Connectors programme.
The Business in the Community website says: “Business Connectors are talented individuals seconded from business, trained by Business in the Community and placed in communities of greatest need to build partnerships that tackle local issues.”
I think we’ve struck gold here in Dudley because Andrew is not only talented, and experienced in business, but also hugely passionate about Dudley and driven by a mission to make a sustainable, lasting difference in the work that he does.
In his first five weeks in his new role Andrew had already made an astonishing number of connections and was working incredibly energetically as a network weaver (see video below), actively creating connections between people and organisations who hadn’t previously known about each other, or worked together.
In the weeks since we met him, Andrew has been just brilliant at connecting us with helpful people and organisations, and has very kindly been promoting Dudley Volunteer Centre and Dudley CVS in all sorts of things he’s been involved in. If you want to use and grow your networks to make positive change in Dudley I’d recommend arranging to meet Andrew for a coffee. Some great connections are guaranteed!
You can connect with Andrew on twitter @dudleyconnector, by email andrew.mullaney@bitcconnect.org or give him a call on 07834945827.
For more on network weaving, check out June Holley’s work, and the video below.
Join us during Trustees Week
“Trustees are the people in charge of a charity. They play a vital role, volunteering their time and working together to make important decisions about the charity’s work. Trustees’ Week is an annual event to showcase the great work that trustees do and highlight opportunities for people from all walks of life to get involved and make a difference.”
From the Trustees’ Week website
Celebrating our work with people, communities and organisations
I’m really pleased to share the work I and my wonderful colleagues have done to support individuals, communities and organisations last year. The Dudley CVS Annual Report outlines how we’ve been connecting and inspiring people and organisations to achieve positive change and championing their work. It covers the year April 2014-March 2015.
A different starting point
One of the best things I do in my job at the moment is work with residents in Coseley who are leading the Big Local programme, along with my colleagues Neil and Donna. We’ve recently been testing out new ways to support people with ideas who want to start activities. We have worked hard with residents to develop a process which embraces the underpinning ethos of East Coseley Big Local: to start with what is already available around us.
Doris and Vusa live in Coseley and want to start a weekly out-of-school education, recreation and mentoring programme for 8 – 14 year olds. They agreed to help test our new process. A month ago they joined Dudley CVS staff and four residents from the East Coseley Big Local Core Group. We started off by sharing some examples of inspiring projects from other places around the world. Doris was interested in Singledingen, a project started by neighbours in a park in Rotterdam, and Hackney Pirates, an amazing out-of-school learning adventure started by a teacher and local people.
Then we introduced our Ideas Canvas, which prompted conversation about what Doris, Vusa and other members of their team bring in terms of passion, skills, experience and knowledge. Together we identified who they might like to meet to help them get started. Something we asked which was a bit of a surprise to Doris and Vusa was: ‘What could the children bring and contribute to the programme?’ They hadn’t thought about this before, but readily considered ways that children could share their talents with each other, and be supported to take on leadership roles.
Another surprise was that we were able to help Doris and Vusa to cut their costs for 2 taster sessions by about two-thirds, by re-thinking some activities with them, and by sourcing materials and equipment that could be borrowed from local groups. This was possible due to members of local groups being involved in the Big Local Core Group, added to by the local knowledge of Dudley CVS officer Neil Langford. An unexpected outcome of bringing people together in the way we did was that after also hearing about a children’s holiday club which was planned at Darkhouse Baptist Church, Doris volunteered to help out with it. And in turn she had offers of help for her taster weekend.
Made 4 Kidz, founded by Doris and Vusa, now has a lovely bright website, a Facebook Page and two taster sessions running this weekend at the Rainbow Community Centre. Leaflets have been delivered to households in the area. Please do help spread the word.
Also do let us know what you think about connecting people and resources in neighbourhoods, and any experiences you have of doing it.
Building groups, building friendships: Black Country Integration Project
On Friday evening I had the pleasure of visiting the Mayor of Dudley’ parlour to celebrate the launch of one of my groups, Black Country Integration Project.
Voice and influence – a post for #smallcharityweek Policy Day
Ten years ago my work in Dudley was focused on ways that community groups, faith groups and voluntary organisations could influence decision making about local services in the borough. There were all sorts of partnerships of leaders, policy makers and managers creating strategies and plans in relation to regeneration, learning, health, community safety, housing, the environment, heritage and more. It was very difficult to know if our sector was exercising any influence on decisions and plans being made, and what impact we were having.
So we embarked on what was to become a seven year journey with community development specialists changes, contributing to the development and local use of an influence framework for groups and networks. It is called Voice, and it can help small charities to think through ways to increase their influence. (The Voice framework led to three other influence frameworks being developed – see changes website for more about these.)
We had lots and lots of conversations with people involved in networks in Dudley borough comprising community groups, small charities and faith groups, as well as larger charities.
We discovered a number of ways that they influence.
- Which of these have you tried?
- Can you see advantages and disadvantages depending on your overall goal?
- What works for your group or organisation?
By working with people from a range local groups and organisations in Dudley borough, we also figured out a useful way for people to what their capacity to influence is, and what steps they can take to increase it. These steps form a crucial part of the Voice framework.
Do these steps reflect things you have thought about?
Do any of them give you ideas about new things you could try?
Have a go!
There is much more to the Voice framework, and there are a number of people who work and volunteer in Dudley borough who have been trained to work with groups using Voice. I use thinking and activities from Voice in my work all the time because it is so useful. If you would like Dudley CVS to run sessions on influence using Voice please do get in touch.
Further reading
You can read more about Voice in this Handy Guide.
There was a lovely short article about influence and Voice published in NCVO’s magazine.
For anyone with a taste for something more academic, there was an essay on Voice published in the Community Development Journal in 2008.
Influencing decision-makers
As you have no doubt spotted by now, we are celebrating Small Charity Week in Dudley borough and we have plans for all sorts of support and discussion opportunities both face to face and online. I’ve offered to collect and share ideas, stories and top tips for Policy and Influence day (Wednesday 17 June).
In our most recent survey of our sector the third most important area of support organisations and groups said they want Dudley CVS to provide is creating the conditions for the sector to influence local policy and planning, be engaged, represented and involved in local decision making bodies. Also making it on to the top 10 priorities was support to the sector to campaign for social change.
As the Small Charity Week website points out: small charities are the centre of civil society. In the UK 97% of charities have an annual turnover of less than £1.5 million but in terms of impact on local communities here and across the globe their contribution is phenomenal. It is important therefore that the voices of small charities are heard.
Some of the ways Dudley CVS helps small charities to be heard is by:
- supporting networks which bring together and amplify the voices of small charities
- working with small charities to get press coverage
- giving staff time to support small groups at social media surgeries so that they can communicate and connect online using free tools
- representing small charities and the wider sector on a range of strategic boards
We’d love to hear from local small charities about your…
- success stories – what or who have you influenced and how?
- learning – what worked and what didn’t in your efforts to influence?
- top tips for other small charities who want to influence policy and have their voice heard
Just leave us a comment below or reply on Facebook or Twitter.
And in the meantime, here is a brief but very useful piece of advice about influencing decision-makers on the Campaign Central site. Let us know what you think of it.
Dudley CVS blog 
