More comment on the launch event for the national hubs of expertise (Brum, 28th March), roughly in ‘order of appearance’. (Note to Lizzie - I’ll find a news item in here somewhere, I promise.)

Firstly, it was good to be reminded by Chris Pond, the chair of the new CapacityBuilders body, that all ChangeUp funding will go through them in future, rather than the present disjointed affair where the national hubs get dealt with at one level, while regional/local sector infrastructure projects go via Regional Offices with varying understanding, capability and priorities in managing the process. On the other hand it was disappointing that CapacityBuilders itself is having its own launch in the same venue in a few days time, so that Chris couldn’t say anything new here.

Back on Finance Hub, somehow I had missed that this was even further delayed in development than the ICT Hub. It seems unlikely that contracts for work (mainly research) that were only sorted last week can deliver quality results in just 3 months. Most of the sector doesn’t work at that speed, however much certain ‘voices’ for the sector claim, unless it is an absolutely crucial issue.

One quote of note from the governance session (not word for word) “a step change in trustee diversity is needed”, in contrast to most of the other good governance issues.

And from NCVO boss Stuart Etherington’s winding up (or perhaps winding down, as there were some drooping heads): “In part, this (Hubs) programme is devised to re-engineer aspects of the (sector) infrastructure” - a deliberate strategy from NCVO, and that it is crucial that there is a better relationship between national, regional and local ‘capacity’ (we presume he means capacity building organisations, such as NCVO, regional forums and local CVS). These comments were interesting partly because this event was aimed at frontline organisations rather than infrastructure bodies, as supposedly the latter had already been involved and informed. But the many Council of Voluntary Service and other ‘LIOs’ present somewhat undermined that statement.

Yesterday’s Hubs Launch Event in Birmingham was interesting as much for the private conversations as the public messages. A wide variety of frustration and anger came my way from a range of people I spoke to, from concerns from sector suppliers that their business model was being undermined by public funds, to what I guess was annoyance that the brochure invite to “Find out how you can run your organisation more effectively” bore little relation to an event that was more an update and request for views on what the hubs are planning to do. And plenty of comment on wasted money both nationally and in the ’sub-regional consortia’, although some appeared based on inaccurate information.
The event got off to a bad start for me by the ICT Hub stand offering a free mouse mat, while the others were all providing information. Hardly an encouraging indicator of direction, but perhaps that was because today sees the separate ICT Hub launch event in London.

Enough of the negative. I was impressed by the comprehensive thought and prepation evident in the Governance hub workshop, even if my neighbour reckoned his organisation had already done everything they suggested.

And it was encouraging to learn that the Finance Hub, which had previously seemed to be purely focused on funding issues, was aiming to put resources into supporting existing funding advice networks and develop a community accountancy network. As another participant said, successful funding is also about strategic planning, financial management, monitoring and reporting. A slight shame that this has meant income generation issues are on the back-burner but getting the basics sorted before the ’sexy’ has got to be right.

Speaking of which, I heard that the word ‘hubber’, which could be a description of someone involved in hubs, means condom in Australia. Anyone want to confirm or deny?

For those not in the know, the 6 national hubs of expertise are: finance, ICT, performance, governance, volunteering and workforce development. See Professional Bodies page on VolResource.

A few key quotes to come in another blog post.

[tags]hubs of expertise, infrastructure, finance, governance, ICT[/tags]

This is a significant health resource for the Irish voluntary sector and community not just in Brent, but across England and the United Kingdom. It draws together available health data on excessive Irish morbidity. Irish people are the only migrant population to suffer significant deterioration to health in England.

Authored by Dr. Patricia Walls, the report indicates very high suicide, cancer and respiratory and heart disease rates, high levels of socio-economic and housing disadvantage, high mental health admissions, disproportionate use of drug and alcohol services and excessive smoking rates among the local and national Irish populations.

Given the absence of major collated research studies of the Irish population for some years, the report is timely and should prove useful to any Irish agency or any professional requiring knowledge and statistics of the health status of the Irish population in London Borough of Brent and across England.

The 2006 Irish in Brent Health Profile Report.

Budget 2006 - good or bad for the sector?

Is the freeze in expenditure (in real terms) for the Home Office from next financial year (2007-08) bad news for the voluntary sector? Quite a bit of funding comes through that route including, we think, Futurebuilders and Capacity Builders (launching next week to take over ChangeUp activity). It could come under pressure from competing bids from other Home Office concerns.

Or does the Office of Charity and Third Sector Finance being established in the Treasury mean that funding might be protected or even improved? But when Gordon eventually stops being Chancellor, will interest shrivel?
I’m not going to pretend to have enough political or policy insight to give an answer right now. But sector developments could be about to get even more interesting.

So, there’s to be a new unit set up by the Treasury to coordinate across departments on voluntary sector and social enterprise financial matters.

That’s the Government’s Office of Charity And Third Sector Finance - GOCATS? (OK so there’s a spare F, no rude suggestions please.)

See VoluntaryNews for the real news.

I’d spotted this blog a day or two ago, but hadn’t quite realised that a) it had only just gone live and b) it’s the first blog from a government minister:

David Miliband’s blog at odpm.gov.uk

Miliband is Communities and Local Government Minister, and is in the Cabinet alongside Prescott (I won’t stoop to making comments on what a blog from the latter would read like). As the blog is hosted by his department he can’t indulge in party political points. He introduces it by saying:
“This blog is my attempt to help bridge the gap - the growing and potentially dangerous gap - between politicians and the public.”

It should be worth keeping a tab on.

Here’s eGovMonitor’s ‘First Minister of blogging‘ comment piece.

The New Media Awards, run by New Statesman magazine, this year has an accompanying blog covering “all things related to the convergence of politics and new media” and also looking at relevant projects.

A recent item looks at whether we are catching up with the US in using internet for political campaigning. http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/nma/nma2006/blog/.

Hello

I am new to blogs and for that matter charity work.

My wife and I moved to France in 2001 after loosing much of our retirement capital in UK farming. We took to riding bikes to keep fit and as a low cost hobby. We decided to do something useful in pursuing our new interest and guess what, I am going to cycle solo the 2,261 miles of this years Tour de France route for cancer charities.

We chose a charity in France, the UK and the USA because our immediate family is located in all three countries. We had strong reasons for choosing each charity in the respective countries.

We have set up a website (www.cancercharitytour.com), and most of my time is now spent on the administrative side of organising the event, that is, when I am not training on the bike.

We have set up and run several businesses in the past and undertaken voluntary posts in various national societies and clubs. However, this project is something quite new and challenging, particularly with three countries involved.

We would welcome any advice or comments on our venture in order to make it successful in raising as much as possible. The more we progress, it becomes clear how professional and vast the world of charity work has become.

cybersoc.com, a blog which covers things like citizen journalism, internet research and online community management, is celebrating its first birthday in style next week (20th-24th March), with a high profile bunch of guest bloggers:

• Citizen Journalism: Richard Sambrook, Director of Global News at the BBC
• Online Community Management (well known in US nonprofit circles): Nancy White of Full Circle Associates
• Online Community Management: Craig Newmark and/or Jim Buckmaster from Craigslist.org
• Internet Research: Professor Stephen Coleman, Institute of Communication Studies at the University of Leeds
• Web 2.0: Scott Rafer of Mobile Community site Winksite

Should be fairly interesting, if you are into this sort of thing. See www.cybersoc.com

If you are really looking for somewhere to post news concerning your organisation (activities, campaigns, reports, events etc), there is now a facility to do so on VoluntaryNews. See the Public or About tabs on that site.