dudley

Six simple steps to involving volunteers for small charities @SCWeek2015

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Eileen (@dudleyvols) has shared a nice, visual six simple steps to involving volunteers in advance of Small Charity Week when we’ll be holding a drop in to answer all of your volunteer-involving questions on Thursday 18th June, 1pm-5pm.

Why not drop into our office between those times or, if you can’t make it, ask your questions here, on the Volunteer Centre blog, Twitter or Facebook and we’ll do our best to answer them for you.

As Eileen said, she can help you every step of the way and all year round to help your volunteers have the best possible experience with you.

Celebrating Small Charity Week in Dudley borough

Becky 6 Comments

SCW Loz Logo Date 2015

Small Charity Week (15th-20th June) celebrates and raises awareness of the essential work of small charities (defined as charities and CICs that have an annual turnover under £1.5million).

This year, we’re joining in with the celebrations and running special activities and workshops across the week including:

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A year in the life… Supporting small groups

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Photo credit: Lotus Carroll / Source / CC BY-NC-SA

Photo credit: Lotus Carroll / Source / CC BY-NC-SA

It’s that time of year again when we start thinking about our annual report, a review of how, collectively, we have helped to build caring, vibrant and strong communities where everyone can achieve their potential. I enjoy taking a step back and looking at what small differences I may have made throughout the year, so I’m inviting you to take a glimpse of my personal snapshot of 2014-15 (April-March), supporting small community groups, voluntary organisations, charities and social enterprises.

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Celebrating Mayor’s Civic Awards winners

Becky 1 Comment

civic winners 2

I was delighted to see that some of the fabulous voluntary and community groups that we support had been recognised for their diverse achievements at this month’s Mayor’s Civic Awards.

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What we can achieve when we work together: celebrating International Women’s Day

Becky 1 Comment

2015-03-09 14.26.54

 

On Monday afternoon I had the lovely honour of celebrating International Women’s Day with Diyya, a group in Lye that supports women and their families by bringing them together, building their confidence and encouraging them to take advantage of opportunities to learn new things and develop their skills.

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Completing your Awards for All application

Becky Leave a comment

Here’s a useful post from the Big Lottery Fund on the mistakes to avoid when completing your Awards for All application. As incomplete applications can’t be assessed, it’s really worthwhile doublechecking your application before submitting it, to avoid unnecessary delays to your project. Have a read and learn more below.

You can always get help with your Awards for All application from Dudley CVS and we have loads of experience with building good quality projects and applications. And remember, Dudley borough is currently under-subscribed to Awards for All (see our last post on this here: http://wp.me/p4qxlT-5m), so it might be a good time to get planning your application!

We’re busy planning our Awards for All event with staff from Big Lottery Fund and Dudley Council where you will be able to work on some of the most important questions on the application form. The event will be in April and we’ll post details very soon.

The National Lottery Community Fund's avatarThe National Lottery Community Fund Blog

When we announced our latest round of Awards for All grants this January, we took a look at some of the most common mistakes made when applying for our small grant funding, and how you can avoid them.Application-blog-image

It seems obvious, but you’d be amazed by the number of application forms we receive that are incomplete. If your application is not complete then it can’t be assessed. Make sure you thoroughly read through the application guidance first and ensure you answer all the questions in the form.

Again, it might sound simple but please double check that all of your personal information, such as names and addresses are spelled correctly.

The most common application mistakes we see are:

  • Contacts not being suitable; ensure your senior contact is able to be legally responsible for any grant we may offer.
  • The main and senior contact being the same person.
  • Home addresses, dates of birth and landlines not included…

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Dudley borough projects can get their hands on Awards for All funding

Becky 3 Comments

We’ve recently learned that Dudley projects are missing out on funding from Awards for All, a Big Lottery Fund programme that offers grants of between £300 and £10,000 for activities that run for 12 months or less.

You can learn more about Awards for All by watching this short video:

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Our work gets recognised in high places!

Becky 2 Comments

Our work in partnership with the local authority to guide communities through the process of taking on, developing and managing buildings has been held up as an example to be replicated across the whole country in a national paper given to the CLG (Communities and Local Government) Select Committee earlier this week.

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Supporting leaders all year round!

Becky 5 Comments

Trustee flyer

“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

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A year of… Celebrating how we’ve supported the sector 2013-14

Becky 1 Comment

It’s a busy and exciting time here at Dudley CVS as we’re gearing up for our AGM and Volunteer Awards, which will be held on Thursday evening. Within all this preparation and planning, we’ve been working on a new style of annual report that celebrates what we’ve been doing to support our sector and the wonderful people within it and we’re so happy to share it now.

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