Filed under: meetings | Tags: DCMS, England, funding, heritage, ncvo, olympics, OTS, vcs, volarts
On Thursday I was in London for my regular meeting with Heritage Link and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. We were joined by Chris Atkins, Head of Lottery Distribution and Third Sector Policy at DCMS and had a wide ranging discussion about the voluntary cultural sectors. Among many other topics we discussed the progress of the sector coalition on Gift Aid, the Office of the Third Sector’s withdrawal of its Campaigning Fund and Heritage Link’s Cultural Olympiad project, ‘Discovering Places’, which has been awarded £1M from the Olympic Lottery Distributor.
Robin Simpson.
On Wednesday I was at the Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisations in Manchester for the second meeting of the NCVO Members’ Assembly. It was good to see NCVO continuing to use a creative approach to the assembly meetings: the format again gave us good opportunities to interact with most of the other people in the room and incubated some innovative ideas on ‘the good society’. As part of the development of NCVO’s civil society agenda, and the NCVO Manifesto for the general election, we considered the questions: “what is the good society?”; “how do voluntary and community organisations help to create the good society”; and “what will we need from the next government to achieve it?”. I worried, at first, that this might lead to an unrealistic utopian discussion but as we worked through the exercises some very clear ideas emerged. It was a really interesting and thought-provoking day.
Robin Simpson.
On Wednesday I was at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations in London to take part in a focus group as part of the NCVO/RSA project on ‘the future of membership’. Representatives of a wide range of Third Sector organisations discussed what ‘membership’ means in their contexts and how ideas of ‘membership’ are changing. We heard examples of ‘member’ being used to mean subscribers, mailing list recipients, those with a governance role, volunteers, clients, supporters, ambassadors and advocates. In most cases ‘members’ seem to be expected to fulfil several of these roles. We also looked at external factors which are changing the way in which people engage with voluntary organisations, particularly the recession, technology and localism. It was a fascinating afternoon which provided much food for thought. You can follow the progress of ‘the future of membership’ on the Third Sector Foresight website at http://www.3s4.org.uk/.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: volarts, funding, politics, DCMS, England, vcs, ncvo, heritage
On Tuesday I was in London for my regular voluntary cultural sector alliance meeting with the Central Council for Physical Recreation (CCPR), Heritage Link and the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO). Among many other topics we discussed: the new DCMS Third Sector Strategy; the Physical Activity Alliance which is working (with Sport England) to realise the Government’s 2012 target to get 2 million people more active (take part in the consultation survey at http://www.activityalliance.org); the progress of the NCVO Funding Commission and links to the work on philanthropy being undertaken by DCMS; Lord Addington’s private members bill seeking a ’social tariff’ (somewhere between domestic and commercial) for water rates and music licensing (currently just in relation to sports clubs but could be extended to include other community groups).
Robin Simpson.
On Wednesday I was in London to attend the first meeting of the new NCVO Members’ Assembly. NCVO’s recent governance review reduced the size of its Board of Trustees but created the Assembly as a way of retaining the representative voices of all parts of the NCVO membership. The Assembly comprises about 50 people representing geographical regions and thematic electoral colleges: I am one of two representatives of ‘recreation and culture’. All of which sounds fairly formal and stuffy, but there was a determination to make the bi-annual Assembly meetings as informal and creative as possible. Wednesday’s meeting used ‘Open Space’ techniques to allow Assembly members to dictate the agenda and it worked really well. There was a massive noise level in the room throughout the day as people got stuck in to hundreds of intense conversations. Every single person made a substantial contribution to the debates – which is not something you can say very often about a meeting of 50 people! – and the closing comments indicated a high level of enjoyment, enthusiasm and inspiration. I worry a little that this may have created very high expectations – both for the next meeting and for how the NCVO Board uses the ideas and opinions that came out of the Assembly: this is now a key challenge for NCVO. As part of our exploration of the future of civil society, I led a discussion on ‘the conundrum of infrastructure’ (which I still think sounds like an Indiana Jones film!). The key message generated by this discussion was the danger of infrastructure organisations getting too distant from their members and beginning to exist for their own sake. Infrastructure organisations should be less focused on perpetuating themselves and concentrate on enabling their members to do what they do better: we may need to work harder to stay rooted with our members. This might usefully be applied to all infrastructure organisations, including NCVO itself.
Robin Simpson.
On Tuesday I was in London for our regular meeting voluntary cultural sector alliance meeting. Unfortunately Kate Pugh from Heritage Link couldn’t join us this time but we still had a useful three-way exchange of information and issues between the Central Council for Physical Recreation (CCPR), the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) and the Voluntary Arts Network. We heard in detail about the recently launched NCVO Funding Commission which is being chaired by Rachel Lomax, the former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, and is now seeking views on the themes that it should consider and any big ideas on how to secure a sustainable future for the Third Sector. This first phase of consultation will run until 13 May, see: http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/policy/index.asp?id=12706. We also discussed the Department of Health physical active plan which aims to get 2 million people more active. The Physical Activity Alliance, a sector led organisation comprised of leading physical activity promoting organisations including CCPR, is working with the Department of Health to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the target. Infrastructure bodies representing the more physically active artforms (particularly dance) might consider joining the Physical Activity Alliance. CCPR has been awarded BS 8555 accreditation for its Environmental Management System and is now working to help its member organisations to become more environmentally sustainable. These are just a few of the many topics we covered along with our usual sharing of peer support and gossip!
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: volarts, funding, politics, England, vcs, ncvo, volunteering, OTS
On Wednesday I was at The Brewery in the City of London to attend the annual conference of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. The NCVO conference is always a really enjoyable, thought-provoking day and this year was no exception. The keynote speaker in the morning was Vince Cable, Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party and Shadow Chancellor. He started by suggesting there was a danger for the voluntary and community sector of “drowning in a bath of warm words” as politicians of all persuasions queued up to say nice things about the sector. He focussed on the effects of the recession on the sector, identifying a “scissors crisis” of diminishing income at the same time as rising needs. The situation was not, however, unremittingly negative: “in a time of crisis we may get a sense of solidarity with people becoming less selfish and looking more to their local community”. It is also important to remember that “for the vast majority of people, this crisis doesn’t affect them: for many it will pass largely unnoticed.” Dr Cable finished by saying that, with the voluntary and community sector now representing 10% of UK GDP, it could be a key player while the private sector is paralysed.
I then attended a breakout session on ‘futures for civil society’, led by Geoff Mulgan of the Young Foundation who is Chair of the Carnegie Enquiry into the Future of Civil Society. We looked in detail at the short term challenges for civil society and the long term questions coming out the other side of the recession. We worked in small groups to identify particular challenges for civil society and actions to address them. A common theme emerged around the economic crisis providing an opportunity for civil society to pull together to realise its collective potential. But we also discussed the difficulty of developing ‘civil society’ as a collective entity whilst preserving the unique strength and resilience which stems from its composition of a multitude of small, diverse, independent organisations and individuals.
In the afternoon I took part in an excellent session on the future of ‘membership’ led by Matthew Taylor of the RSA. Through presentations from Karl Wilding, Head of Research at NCVO, and Alex Hunt of the National Trust, and a lively group discussion, we looked at changing notions of ‘membership’ and the effects of technology, consumerism and demographics on membership organisations. Among many interesting observations, the one idea that has really stuck in my mind is the “inverse activist law” but I’m afraid Chatham House Rules prevent me from saying any more! Matthew Taylor concluded that:
· membership organisations are not competing with each other
· there is a need for a new generation of civic collaborative community organisations
· many of us are holding on to outdated membership structures
This session marked the launch of a project looking at membership issues which is being undertaken by the NCVO Third Sector Foresight Team with the RSA: I look forward to following their progress.
In his annual ‘state of the sector’ address, NCVO Chief Executive, Stuart Etherington, paid tribute to the Government Ministers and officials who had worked hard to deliver the recession action plan for the third sector. He said we were now seeing the limitations of the market and the state: in tougher times ahead conventional solutions will not always work. “We need to develop a new approach driven by the values and methods that civil society embodies.” Stuart launched NCVO’s new Civil Society Framework for Action which seeks long term sources of funding, support for social cohesion, no restriction of the campaigning role of the sector, support for volunteering and collective action on climate change. He talked about the new European Civil Society network and called on the UK Government to create a Department for Civil Society with its own Secretary of State, its own budget and its own powers. Stuart finished by saying “it is an active civil society that makes our country the wonderful place it is.” Baroness Jill Pitkeathly, Chair of the Office of the Third Sector Advisory Body, replied to Stuart Etherington’s speech, emphasising that politicians and policy makers are people too and saying that positive and supportive messages will be listened to and remembered. The final keynote speaker was Benjamin Barber, an American political commentator and former advisor to President Clinton. In a rousing speech he suggested that democracy depends on a healthy civil society and that civil society will be essential to “the restoration of trust on which the future of democracy around the world will depend”.
The NCVO conference closed with a drinks reception hosted by The Guardian, at which the Minister for the Third Sector, Kevin Brennan, praised the work NCVO had done in setting up the third sector recession summit which had led to the Government’s recession action plan for the sector.
Robin Simpson.
Today I have been at NCVO for the latest in a series of meetings about how NCVO works with other infrastructure organisations. This is proving to be a really interesting process, opening up a complex debate about the nature and needs of infrastructure bodies. I fear we may be finding more questions than answers but it’s wonderful to see NCVO taking the time and care to think through these issues.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: volarts, funding, UK, politics, vcs, ncvo, heritage
I was back in London on Tuesday for a regular meeting of my voluntary cultural sector alliance – with CCPR and Heritage Link. We were joined by Louisa Darian from NCVO and, as usual, covered a wide and varied range of topics. We are all concerned about the potential detrimental effect on small, local, cultural groups of the ending of the Awards for All lottery grant scheme. We discussed the possible effects of the recession on our sectors – both in relation to the local groups we support and their national membership organisations. Heritage Link is naturally pre-occupied with the dropping of the Heritage Protection Bill from the Queen’s Speech: having spent eight years working on this, there is now little prospect of the proposed legislation being implemented. We also talked about NCVO’s Funding Commission, which is to be launched in January, and the importance of ensuring it considers funding for cultural voluntary and community sector organisations.
Robin Simpson.
