On Thursday I was in Birmingham to take part in a meeting of the NCVO Members Assembly. The theme of the day was ‘responsible capitalism’ and we opened with a fascinating presentation from Michael Green, an economist who was formerly Head of Communications at the Department for International Development. Michael laid out the options for dealing with the “great vampire squid” of capitalism, urging the charity sector (particularly the charitable foundations) to become “activist investors”. Christine Berry from FairPensions – a charity which works to promote responsible investment by pension funds and other institutional investors – similarly talked about “leveraging the influence of shareholders to improve corporate behaviour”. The third speaker was Charlotte Gardiner, Policy Manager at NCVO, who talked about her role as a Board member of Enabling Enterprise – a Community Interest Company that helps young people develop their employability skills. In the interesting and wide-ranging discussion that followed there was much talk about the commercial sector wanting the voluntary sector to be more business-like. Ray Kipling thought we should be asking the commercial sector to be more voluntary sector-like. Ray, who used to work for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, asked how many commercial business could motivate a lot of people to go out late at night and face death? It was great to see a new North East region representative on the NCVO Members Assembly – Lisa Gardiner who some of you with very long memories will remember was the first Voluntary Arts England Information Officer. Lisa now works for North Tyneside VODA: it was lovely to see her again.
Robin Simpson.
On Wednesday I was at Mary Ward House in London to take part in the NCVO Impact of Infrastructure 2012 conference. The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) is approaching the end of its 3-year Value of Infrastructure Programme (VIP), funded by the Big Lottery Fund. Opening the conference, NCVO Deputy Chief Executive, Ben Kernighan, said there had been a big investment in voluntary sector infrastructure over the past decade – which he called a “golden age for funding for the voluntary sector”. The current Government focus is towards the ‘front line’ rather than infrastructure organisations. But Ben emphasised that “infrastructure is a really important part of the sector and has emerged from the sector … its role in providing a voice and advocacy for the sector is crucial”. He also spoke about a shift from supply-led to demand-driven support. Leesa Herbert from NCVO explained how the Value of Infrastructure Programme provided a robust and relevant framework, categorising the three key common roles of infrastructure organisations as: connecting; developing; and influencing. Sara Burns from Triangle Consulting explained how they had worked with NCVO to develop the VIP impact measurement tools. I spoke, in the afternoon plenary session, about how Voluntary Arts has started to use these impact measurement tools and the way in which we introduced staff and Board members to the system through a series of exercises at our 2011 Awayday. The Impact of Infrastructure conference was an extremely interesting and well-attended event. There were around 150 delegates – mainly from local voluntary sector infrastructure organisations (Councils for Voluntary Service and similar) but with a reasonable representation of national specialist infrastructure bodies like Voluntary Arts. Given how often it seems like we are a unique and complicated organisation, it was very reassuring to meet so many people doing similar work in different locations and sectors.
Robin Simpson.
I was at NCVO in London on Wednesday where Jenny Phillimore from the Third Sector Research Centre at the University of Birmingham and I presented a research seminar on amateur arts and civil society. We discussed the results of our AHRC Connected Communities research project into The Impact of Grassroots Arts Activities on Communities with a group of representatives of third sector and arts organisations. Jenny described the three levels and seven areas of impact identified by our study and said how struck she had been, in particular, by the emphasis that had emerged on the importance of beauty, fun and laughter. It was an interesting discussion which reinforced the need for further research in this area.
Robin Simpson.
I was back in London on Thursday for a working lunch organised by Community Matters and hosted by the National Council for Voluntary Youth Services. This informal gathering brought together more than a dozen national organisations representing community groups, many of whom used to be members of the Community Sector Coalition. We had a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion on topics including a broader vision for community finance, opportunities for autonomous and self-directed social action and connection with young people. We agreed to continue to meet occasionally as an informal group rather than trying to create a new alliance or coalition.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: England, OTS, politics, vcs, volarts, volunteering
On Tuesday I was in London for a meeting of the England Volunteering Development Council at which we welcomed the new EVDC Chair, Baroness Scott of Needham Market. Jess Steele from Locality gave a presentation on the Government’s Community Organisers scheme – one of the main Big Society initiatives. Locality is recruiting and training 500 paid community organisers over 3 years who will then be charged with finding 4,500 more volunteer community organisers. Jess stressed that the organisers will be facilitators, not leaders. Their job is to listen to people and encourage dialogue: the Government does not intend the organisers to bring any particular message and is not seeking any specific outcomes from the scheme. Jess had just visited New York, Detroit and Chicago to learn from the experience of community organisers in the USA. She explained the plan to create a legacy company that will continue to support the scheme after the end of the Government funding in 2015. Toby Blume from Urban Forum then delivered an entertaining and challenging presentation titled ‘There’s No Going Back to Normal: Normal Was the Problem’. Toby looked at the reality of The Big Society, localism, public sector reform, open government and spending cuts. He suggested that there is still a lot of money in this country: the state’s spending levels are still the same as in 2004/5. He talked about new forms of delivery, new ways of working and creative collaboration and gave examples of Urban Forum members engaged on ‘co-production and community resilience’ and ‘community rights made real’. It was an inspiring presentation which left us with the message “the future is ours to shape”.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, funding, localauthorities, politics, Scotland, vcs, volarts
Café Conversations at the Voluntary Arts Scotland Conference
Last Friday and Saturday I was in Edinburgh to attend ‘Going for Gold’ – the third national Voluntary Arts Scotland Conference. It was lovely to return to the Scottish Storytelling Centre on the Royal Mile, where we held our first Scottish conference in 2007. ‘Going for Gold’ was an excellent conference, cleverly constructed by Fiona and her team, with the attention to detail we have come to expect from them. Hannah Garrow from the Scottish Government opened the conference by reading a statement from the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop, which said that “without the voluntary sector much of the local cultural activity that takes place across Scotland would simply not happen”. Andrew Dixon, the Chief Executive of Creative Scotland, thought there were “lots of cultural stories in Scotland that haven’t been told” and said that Creative Scotland was “talking to people about their place in the creative nation”. He spoke about plans for the Year of Creative Scotland 2012 and the Creative Place awards that will celebrate the most creative towns and villages. The quilter, Pat Archibald, gave an incredibly inspiring presentation about her personal creative journey – one of the highlights of the conference for me, the other being Stewart Murdoch, Director Leisure and Communities at Dundee City Council, who spoke about how we measure value and the search for more meaningful measures for what the arts and crafts offer to quality of life.
As with previous Voluntary Arts Scotland conferences, the heart of the event was the Café Conversations session – a series of passionate, thoughtful and creative discussions, with delegates moving between tables to listen and contribute. There was a good mix of people including some of our newest Voluntary Arts Ambassadors, local authority arts officers, representatives of umbrella bodies and artists. It was an entertaining, thought-provoking and inspiring two days – well done to everyone involved.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: England, funding, ncvo, politics, vcs, volarts
On Thursday I was at the National Council for Voluntary Organisations for a meeting of the NCVO Members’ Assembly. The prospect of a full day meeting focussing almost entirely on the review of charity law didn’t seem like the most enticing prospect but it was a surprisingly interesting and enjoyable event. UK charity legislation is to be reviewed from the end of this year. Earlier this week, NCVO President Lord Hodgson was invited to lead the Government review. To feed into this process NCVO is launching an enquiry and member consultation on rethinking charity law and regulation. On Thursday we heard from Jane Hobson, Head of Policy at the Charity Commission, and from Lord Hodgson, and spent most of the day discussing what the sector would hope to get from the Government review. There was a lot of discussion about very small charities that fall below the threshold requiring them to register with the Charity Commission, whether the threshold should be changed or whether there should be other ways of recognising such small charities. Jane Hobson emphasised that the Charity Commission regulates all charities, not just registered charities. Other topics I found particularly interesting were the question of whether charities should be allowed to pay Trustees, the role of the Charity Commission in providing guidance and/or advice to charities and the question of defining public benefit.
The NCVO AGM was held after lunch. NCVO Chair, Martyn Lewis, paid tribute to his predecessor, Sir Graham Melmoth. Martyn reflected on the year 2010-11 which had seen a small drop in NCVO’s income but an increase in its membership (from 7,719 to 8,375 member organisations). Major cuts in funding did not come into effect until the 2011-12 financial year but their impact was felt at the end of March when one third of NCVO staff were made redundant. Nevertheless NCVO is pursuing a bold and positive strategy, having secured planning permission and a bank loan to build a fourth floor on its headquarters which will become a charity hub and a home to more voluntary organisations. NCVO Chief Executive, Sir Stuart Etherington, said that there is a real anxiety about what is happening in world markets and we are now expecting four or five years of low growth levels. He said the voluntary sector is starting to shrink, with staffing levels across the sector showing a net loss for the first time – and this might just be the beginning. Although the sector did see the financial crisis coming and planned for it, the speed and impact of the financial hurricane proved impossible for deal with. Stuart did, however, find reasons to be optimistic, including the fact that Government remains supportive of the sector. It’s a tough time and it’s a time when Boards become much more important. Stuart also said he feels that NCVO is needed much more now than it was five years ago.
Robin Simpson.
On Thursday I was at the Institution of Civil Engineers, just off Parliament Square in London, for the annual NCVO Hinton Lecture. The hall was packed this year to hear Baroness Williams of Crosby, The Rt Hon Shirley Williams, speak about ‘Beyond the State and the Market – what kind of society in the 21st Century?’. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to see her and she did not disappoint. Shirley Williams is now 81 years old and her list of achievements is incredible. She was the Secretary of State for Education who replaced grammar schools with comprehensives. She was one of the ‘Gang of Four’ rebels who left the Labour Party to found the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in 1981. More recently she co-drafted the constitutions of Russia, Ukraine and South Africa. And, as the NCVO Chair – the former BBC newsreader Martyn Lewis told us – she has appeared more times than any other guest on the BBC’s ‘Question Time’ programme. Shirley Williams is tiny (particularly next to the very tall Martyn Lewis). Entering the hall almost unnoticed while the audience were still deep in conversation, she suddenly broke away from the official welcoming party and strode quickly and purposefully onto the stage, keen to start her lecture with the minimum of fuss. She spoke eloquently and articulately with only minimal glances at her notes – until the poor lighting made it difficult for her to see some of the statistics she wanted to quote and she came a little unstuck. This only served to prove, however, how little of her speech had been read. Her sharp mind, vast experience, clear thinking and articulacy was particularly demonstrated in her answers to questions from the audience at the end of her lecture. Her speech ranged across a mass of topics, from the fall of communism and the peace dividend to the Arab Spring, the banking crisis, the expenses scandal, Occupy Wall Street, mobile technology, the rise of social networking, the loss of trust in politicians, poverty reduction in Lula’s Brazil and George Clooney’s new film ‘The Ides of March’ (“brilliantly made … and as cynical as anything I’ve seen”). Baroness Williams said that “our deliberative politics is going to be hard to maintain”. Politicians are already being bypassed in some ways and these changes could create huge opportunities for the voluntary sector. She warned, however, that a number of charities seem to play power games against each other and get caught up in selfish forms of politics. She urged the voluntary sector to “be a bit humble and realise that a lot of you can learn from those you serve”. Kevin Curley, the Chief Executive of NAVCA, asked Baroness Williams whether that flagship policy of the Government she supports, the Big Society, will deliver social justice? “No” she replied – how refreshing to hear a straightforward answer from a politician!
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, Europe, Republic of Ireland, vcs, volarts
On Thursday and Friday I have been in Cork for the Creat and Voluntary Arts Ireland Arts and Civil Society Symposium. The event was held at Christchurch, Triskel Arts Centre – a converted church in the heart of Cork City’s shopping area. An audience of artists, arts organisations, academics, students and funders from across Ireland gathered to discuss how arts and culture can be reaffirmed at the heart of civic engagement. I chaired a breakout session looking at Measuring Artistic and Social Impact which was a practical and positive discussion about evaluation. It was particularly interesting to be talking about impact measurement again so soon after our Growing the Grassroots event in London. It was good to hear the debate about civil society and the arts in a Republic of Ireland context and to meet a wide range of people from the Irish arts sector.
Unfortunately the symposium was somewhat overshadowed for many of us by a fire that broke out just after midnight on Thursday at the hotel at which many of the delegates were staying. A large blaze in the car park behind the hotel was extinguished before it spread to the hotel building and thankfully no-one was hurt, but the hotel was filled with smoke and we were not allowed back to our rooms until 4.30 am. It was a difficult and exhausting experience and I felt sorry for the speakers on the symposium agenda on Friday morning who faced a largely shattered and drained audience.
On Friday the Carnegie UK Trust sponsored a challenge debate as part of the symposium which saw speakers from Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Italy, England and Spain discuss ‘Arts, Civil Society and Crisis’. This looked at economic, social and political change across Europe and its impact on arts and civil society.
Robin Simpson.
On Thursday I was at the University of Birmingham to take part in a meeting of the Third Sector Research Centre’s ‘Below the Radar’ reference group. The Below the Radar research stream was established by the Third Sector Research Centre to explore the role, function, impact and experiences of small community action groups or organisations. The Below the Radar research is informed by a reference group which brings together practitioners from national community networks (including Voluntary Arts), policy makers, researchers and others who bring particular perspectives from the sector. On Thursday we heard the details of the Third Sector Knowledge Portal, a new online database, bringing together research and information on the voluntary, community and social enterprise sectors, which is to be launched by the Third Sector Research Centre next week, see: http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/Research/KnowledgePortal/tabid/840/Default.aspx. We also discussed possible topics for future Below the Radar research, recognising that community groups are probably the least researched part of the third sector.
Robin Simpson.
