Shouldn't servers serve?
Following the ups and downs of yesterday, this morning demanded another early start; I arrived at 7:00 am to find that our server was still failing to reboot properly. I roused Angelo from his bed and we soon decided that the best option was for me to deliver the server to him tonight, and for him to rebuild it over the weekend with two new hard drives. So my journey home tonight will be via South Mimms service station. Meanwhile, we managed at least to get internet access, but there is still no e-mail or access to shared services.
My day proper began with communicating this news to staff, already under some pressures. Everyone takes the news well; although it is difficult to tell whether this is from professional understanding, philosophical stoicism or mere resignation.
After this I went for a coffee with Helen to talk through future plans for the Volunteer Centre. We had a very helpful and interesting talk.
On returning to the office, I spoke with colleagues at Three Rivers CVS and then with Alan, new chair of the Sunflower project, about the 8 December meeting on the future of the project. It looks like the meeting will be extremely busy.
Fundraising
I next spent some time with Anne, our fundraising advisor, who is deluged with requests for support. She has developed an excellent client list including the Watford Hindu Group, the Dolphina Gymnasium, Woodside Community Motorcycle Club, Playskill, the Jets Table Tennis Club and the Orbit Bowls Club. These are exactly the sort of groups we should be targeting for support. But Anne’s very proper concern is that some of these groups have no prior experience of fundraising and often need support getting basic documentation together such as constitutions, diversity policies, childcare policies, and so on. I agreed with Anne that this developmental support should properly be delivered by myself or Vanessa. The three of us will need to meet soon to establish a proper structure for providing fundraising support so that organisations receive the best possible service, and we make the most use of everyone’s time.
Westfield School
After this, I hurried off with Farzana to meet staff at Westfield School. This is the first time I have seen Farzana in a “live” meeting, and she handled herself very capably. My confidence in her grew accordingly, and back at the office I told her so. Meanwhile, Helen was delivering a workshop for future volunteers: there were about fifteen people present engaged in some animated discussions and activities.
Coffee and home
At 4:30, I was visited by Mary from neighbouring Three Rivers CVS, and we went for a coffee. We talked through several matters of mutual interest, including our joint training programme, the Sunflower Centre, WBC funding for the West Watford Community Centre (where Mary is the new Chair of trustees), bids to the Big Lottery, and elderly domestic cats. When we finished talking at 5:30 and I was startled to discover that four coffees had cost us £12.
Back in the office, I completed some paperwork, loaded the server in the car and left about 7:00 to deliver the server to Angelo in Walthamstow. From Watford to Walthamstow I listened to Johnny Walker’s C&W show, and from Walthamstow to WGC I listed to R4 programmes about philanthropy, higher education and space.
I arrived home around 10:00 to discover that our delightful neighbour Kathy had put up her spectacular Christmas decorations: environmentally unfriendly, too American, too gaudy and too early. But they did make me smile. At home, I first called my dear old Mum who underwent a minor operation earlier in the day: she was uncomfortable but recovering well. Jackie was meanwhile rather distressed about the various problems of our various kids. Not reports-in-the-newspaper or drug-and-alcohol sort of problems, more the oh-no-they-didn’t-did-they sort of problem. One result is that our precious Friday night will this week be taken up baby-sitting our wonderful-at-any-other-time-of-the-week grand-daughter Bethany. Jackie and I talk through everything and finally got to bed around midnight. Kids, eh?
Wednesday, 29 November 2006
At times, today was pleasing and satisfying; and in the morning it shimmered with great promise. But then came frustration and exasperation, and finally peaceful sleep. Perhaps a microcosm of life itself? Allow me to explain my day.
A good start to the day
7:00 am: I arrived at the office and spent time catching up on mails, sorting out the big database project, and working on our business plan.
9:00 am: I received a telephone call from Allan, leader of a local bowls club. A week or so ago, I had written to him (and many others) about Watford Borough Council’s new lease proposals. Allan has just undergone triple by-pass surgery, during which he contracted an infection and he now hopes to be released from hospital in time for Christmas. But he telephoned me from the hospital to talk about the needs of his club and its contribution to Watford’s community since its foundation in 1912. Where else but the voluntary sector could you find such devotion and commitment? We talked about the clubs particular problems adn possible solutions. Allan also asked about the club’s charitable status and said he would forward a copy of its constitution so I can advise properly on this.
Guideposts Trust
10:00 am: I arrived at the Guideposts Trust, a local mental health project, to talk about borrowing some of the work produced in their arts group so we can display it at the WCVS offices. Katie was very welcoming and explained to me the Trust’s various programmes of support. She introduced me to Andy who runs the arts classes and the three of us talked about specific works, needs and timetables. While at the project I also talked with their Director and others about their needs for an IT training programme for their users, and for volunteers to help redecorate their rooms.
12:00 am: I returned to the office to respond to the morning’s e-mails, including more queries on our database project. Christmas is coming, and people are getting very tense - I wonder if testosterone levels increase in the winter?
I also took a telephone call from the local Police station. They are engaged in next week’s meeting on the future of the Sunflower project (a local project that works with the victims of domestic violence and hate crimes) but, like me, have been having difficulty contacting the Chair of Sunflower’s management committee. We compare notes.
And again
1:00 pm: It happens again: our server crashed. I rebooted it, and the server failed to start. I rebooted it again and managed to start the old Windows 2000 server (thank heavens for that bit of forward planning!) and run a scan disk, and then successfully rebooted the Windows 2003 server. Everything seemed ok at first, but it soon became clear that the crash affected our e-mail services. With telephone and dial-up support from our IT chap Angelo, I ran another scan disk and this revealed corruption on the hard disk, right where the e-mail service is stored. We tried to restore the e-mail service from last night’s back-up, but this crashed the server again. We agree that our plans to replace the server’s hard disks over the Christmas break have to be brought forward to asap. While Angelo wrestled with the server, I asked one of our volunteers, the delightful Maria, to make sure that all members of staff had back ups of their local e-mail files.
2:00 pm: At Francis Combe school, I met with their Connexions co-ordinator and with our Connexions contract manager. The school are very pleased with the work of our Connexions worker and very positive about the progress being made. But the meeting was overshadowed by the death of one of their pupils who it appears may have committed suicide. An distressing situation for the school, but what must the girl's friends and family be going through?
With so many stories in the press about the poor state of schools, it was good to see something positive and to meet with such optimism for the future.
3:00 pm: Back at the office, Angelo is still dialled into the server trying to rescue our e-mail files.
Never knowingly undersold
3:30 pm: WCVS was visited by Jenny, Chief Executive of the Watford John Lewis store. She is considering ways to become more involved in Watford’s community, having moved here only two years ago, and I have a brief to encourage her to join my board of trustees. I talked (perhaps too much) about WCVS’s plans, and Jenny explained John Lewis’s record of community involvement, and her own interest in community and charity groups. We had a very amicable talk for an hour or so, and Jenny agreed to attend our next trustees meeting as an observer.
A change of plans
4:30 pm: I had hoped to leave the office directly after talking with Jenny, but our e-mail services are still down. Angelo has ordered the new hard disks and will install them on Friday. We talked about other tactics for restoring services in the meantime.
5:00 pm: While Angelo began putting our current IT plans into action, I worked on WCVS’s future budget plans.
7:00 pm: Angelo is now nearing the “moment of truth” with our e-mail services, and is waiting for the reinstallation of MS Exchange to be completed. He advised me that this could still take 2-3 hours. I left the office and headed home.
8:00 pm: I arrived home to the wonderful Jackie. We ate and spent time planning our final bits of Christmas shopping. I am so lucky to have Jackie with me!
9:00 pm: Angelo and I talked on the telephone, The reinstallation is still underway.
10:00 pm: ditto.
10:30 pm: Angelo and I talked again. He thinks the re-installation completed, but he has lost dial-up contact with the sever. This may mean the server is re-booting. Or it may mean it has crashed again. I told him I would call him early from the office.
Peace at last
11:00 pm: Jackie and I closed the day with a crossword.
A good start to the day
7:00 am: I arrived at the office and spent time catching up on mails, sorting out the big database project, and working on our business plan.
9:00 am: I received a telephone call from Allan, leader of a local bowls club. A week or so ago, I had written to him (and many others) about Watford Borough Council’s new lease proposals. Allan has just undergone triple by-pass surgery, during which he contracted an infection and he now hopes to be released from hospital in time for Christmas. But he telephoned me from the hospital to talk about the needs of his club and its contribution to Watford’s community since its foundation in 1912. Where else but the voluntary sector could you find such devotion and commitment? We talked about the clubs particular problems adn possible solutions. Allan also asked about the club’s charitable status and said he would forward a copy of its constitution so I can advise properly on this.
Guideposts Trust
10:00 am: I arrived at the Guideposts Trust, a local mental health project, to talk about borrowing some of the work produced in their arts group so we can display it at the WCVS offices. Katie was very welcoming and explained to me the Trust’s various programmes of support. She introduced me to Andy who runs the arts classes and the three of us talked about specific works, needs and timetables. While at the project I also talked with their Director and others about their needs for an IT training programme for their users, and for volunteers to help redecorate their rooms.
12:00 am: I returned to the office to respond to the morning’s e-mails, including more queries on our database project. Christmas is coming, and people are getting very tense - I wonder if testosterone levels increase in the winter?
I also took a telephone call from the local Police station. They are engaged in next week’s meeting on the future of the Sunflower project (a local project that works with the victims of domestic violence and hate crimes) but, like me, have been having difficulty contacting the Chair of Sunflower’s management committee. We compare notes.
And again
1:00 pm: It happens again: our server crashed. I rebooted it, and the server failed to start. I rebooted it again and managed to start the old Windows 2000 server (thank heavens for that bit of forward planning!) and run a scan disk, and then successfully rebooted the Windows 2003 server. Everything seemed ok at first, but it soon became clear that the crash affected our e-mail services. With telephone and dial-up support from our IT chap Angelo, I ran another scan disk and this revealed corruption on the hard disk, right where the e-mail service is stored. We tried to restore the e-mail service from last night’s back-up, but this crashed the server again. We agree that our plans to replace the server’s hard disks over the Christmas break have to be brought forward to asap. While Angelo wrestled with the server, I asked one of our volunteers, the delightful Maria, to make sure that all members of staff had back ups of their local e-mail files.
2:00 pm: At Francis Combe school, I met with their Connexions co-ordinator and with our Connexions contract manager. The school are very pleased with the work of our Connexions worker and very positive about the progress being made. But the meeting was overshadowed by the death of one of their pupils who it appears may have committed suicide. An distressing situation for the school, but what must the girl's friends and family be going through?
With so many stories in the press about the poor state of schools, it was good to see something positive and to meet with such optimism for the future.
3:00 pm: Back at the office, Angelo is still dialled into the server trying to rescue our e-mail files.
Never knowingly undersold
3:30 pm: WCVS was visited by Jenny, Chief Executive of the Watford John Lewis store. She is considering ways to become more involved in Watford’s community, having moved here only two years ago, and I have a brief to encourage her to join my board of trustees. I talked (perhaps too much) about WCVS’s plans, and Jenny explained John Lewis’s record of community involvement, and her own interest in community and charity groups. We had a very amicable talk for an hour or so, and Jenny agreed to attend our next trustees meeting as an observer.
A change of plans
4:30 pm: I had hoped to leave the office directly after talking with Jenny, but our e-mail services are still down. Angelo has ordered the new hard disks and will install them on Friday. We talked about other tactics for restoring services in the meantime.
5:00 pm: While Angelo began putting our current IT plans into action, I worked on WCVS’s future budget plans.
7:00 pm: Angelo is now nearing the “moment of truth” with our e-mail services, and is waiting for the reinstallation of MS Exchange to be completed. He advised me that this could still take 2-3 hours. I left the office and headed home.
8:00 pm: I arrived home to the wonderful Jackie. We ate and spent time planning our final bits of Christmas shopping. I am so lucky to have Jackie with me!
9:00 pm: Angelo and I talked on the telephone, The reinstallation is still underway.
10:00 pm: ditto.
10:30 pm: Angelo and I talked again. He thinks the re-installation completed, but he has lost dial-up contact with the sever. This may mean the server is re-booting. Or it may mean it has crashed again. I told him I would call him early from the office.
Peace at last
11:00 pm: Jackie and I closed the day with a crossword.
Tuesday, 28 November 2006
HIC
This morning, I went first to Hatfield for a meeting of HIC, the Hertfordshire Infrastructure Consortium – a loose grouping of all groups in the County that provide support to the voluntary sector. Although there are many reasons for this group to meet, the glue that really holds it together is the money from ChangeUp / CapacityBuilders provided regionally, and managed by HIC. WCVS leads on two key projects: first, a project to define the “value and volume” of the voluntary sector in Hertfordshire, and secondly, the “Better Governance” initiative to provide support to charity trustees in the County.
But there are also plenty of other worthy projects, and HIC meetings are something of a market place for the exchange of ideas and information. Ann, my counterpart in Stevenage, fed back good information from the County-wide strategic plan “Hertfordshire Forward” and I had a very useful chat with David of the Hertfordshire Community Foundation. The meeting was ably chaired by Kate of the Hertfordshire Community Development Association. Kate has now completed her term as chair and a new chair is needed for the new year: who will allow their name to go forward? It would certainly be a useful learning exercise, but how could I possibly find the time?
Drumming up support
I was back in Watford by lunchtime, drumming up support for the forthcoming meeting on the future of the Sunflower project and following up a few interesting leads from the HIC meeting. Before I knew it, I was meeting with Lyn of the Watford Learning Partnership. Funded (poorly) by the Learning and Skills Council, this group brings together all the key players in post-16 learning and provides a forum for co-ordination and the creation of joint projects. Lyn briefed me on the Partnership’s meeting on Friday.
Following this, I had short meetings with members of WCVS staff, including with Sue who had several issues on the redecoration programme. Frazana, our new Connexions worker, needed some help configuring the new laptop she had this morning collected from the Connexions office in Hertford.
Around 5:00, I am surprised by a welcome visit from Omar of the Watford Racial Equality Council. Omar kept me up to date with developments in WREC and I reassured him that I and WCVS are available to help the organisation on any transition, or to wind up its affairs if this is what they choose to do.
After Omar left, I worked through the draft minutes of WCVS's recent trustees meeting, and began working on our three-year budgets.
I arrived home shortly after 8:00: dinner was ready, Midsummer Murders was on the telly, and after this I took to reading. A very pleasant evening. Spoilt only by the news that our two year-old fridge has completely stopped working, and there's a week's wait for an engineer. Thankfully, Jackie is sorting it out; what a wonderful woman.
This morning, I went first to Hatfield for a meeting of HIC, the Hertfordshire Infrastructure Consortium – a loose grouping of all groups in the County that provide support to the voluntary sector. Although there are many reasons for this group to meet, the glue that really holds it together is the money from ChangeUp / CapacityBuilders provided regionally, and managed by HIC. WCVS leads on two key projects: first, a project to define the “value and volume” of the voluntary sector in Hertfordshire, and secondly, the “Better Governance” initiative to provide support to charity trustees in the County.
But there are also plenty of other worthy projects, and HIC meetings are something of a market place for the exchange of ideas and information. Ann, my counterpart in Stevenage, fed back good information from the County-wide strategic plan “Hertfordshire Forward” and I had a very useful chat with David of the Hertfordshire Community Foundation. The meeting was ably chaired by Kate of the Hertfordshire Community Development Association. Kate has now completed her term as chair and a new chair is needed for the new year: who will allow their name to go forward? It would certainly be a useful learning exercise, but how could I possibly find the time?
Drumming up support
I was back in Watford by lunchtime, drumming up support for the forthcoming meeting on the future of the Sunflower project and following up a few interesting leads from the HIC meeting. Before I knew it, I was meeting with Lyn of the Watford Learning Partnership. Funded (poorly) by the Learning and Skills Council, this group brings together all the key players in post-16 learning and provides a forum for co-ordination and the creation of joint projects. Lyn briefed me on the Partnership’s meeting on Friday.
Following this, I had short meetings with members of WCVS staff, including with Sue who had several issues on the redecoration programme. Frazana, our new Connexions worker, needed some help configuring the new laptop she had this morning collected from the Connexions office in Hertford.
Around 5:00, I am surprised by a welcome visit from Omar of the Watford Racial Equality Council. Omar kept me up to date with developments in WREC and I reassured him that I and WCVS are available to help the organisation on any transition, or to wind up its affairs if this is what they choose to do.
After Omar left, I worked through the draft minutes of WCVS's recent trustees meeting, and began working on our three-year budgets.
I arrived home shortly after 8:00: dinner was ready, Midsummer Murders was on the telly, and after this I took to reading. A very pleasant evening. Spoilt only by the news that our two year-old fridge has completely stopped working, and there's a week's wait for an engineer. Thankfully, Jackie is sorting it out; what a wonderful woman.
Monday, 27 November 2006
Spending time with people
Over the past week I’ve become conscious that I need to spend more time with WCVS staff: some show signs of feeling abandoned and this is not good.
This morning, I undercut the rush hour again and spent two quiet hours alone in the office delegating different bits of work and distributing papers and emails. I left some invoices and correspondence for Sue to deal with, some letters about the transport scheme I passed to Laura, and forwarded some fundraising information to Anne. The Performance Hub is holding a conference in Peterborough in February to promote a series of toolkits to improve organisational performance – these invitations I passed to Vanessa.
I then hoped to spend the remainder of the day on informal one-to-one sessions with staff. Sha-Lee arrived before 9:00 and I spent an hour or so talking her through the next stage of her work collating a new voluntary sector directory for Watford. So far, 989 organisations have been whittled down to just over 500, but this includes a large number that are properly based in Three Rivers, St Albans or Hertsmere, and we are still stymied by our ignorance of local postcodes.
Next, I had a meeting planned for 10:00, but this was cancelled, so I was able to have a brief talk with Farzana. She has survived her first week, but she is keen to get to grips with her new role and is frustrated at the lack of progress. But she has many meetings planned over the next fortnight and will soon become more independent.
I then met with Vanessa, who is keen to attend the February conference in Peterborough. She has also identified an opportunity to secure a small amount of funding to visit local VCS organsiations and carry out “health checks”. These are short visits to organisations to give them a chance to benchmark themselves against “best practice” standards in areas such as planning, accounting, governance, employment and so on. As ever, Vanessa has lots of ideas for how this can operate: between us, we need to get down to work in the new year visiting organisations.
Next, I had a short meeting with Maria, one of WCVS’s volunteer team, who works particularly closely with me on maintaining our website. I ensured that she is now set up on our network with her own user ID and e-mail account, and pass over some information for her to load into the website. She is very smart, but she has only been in the UK from Poland recently and her English is still developing. Briefly, I sympathise with Poland losing so much young talent to the West, but Maria is determined to return to Poland one day, and this will undoubtedly be England’s loss.
After lunch, I sat down with Helen to talk through several initiatives she is involved in with the Volunteer Centre. She has made good progress developing new procedures for the Centre, and we talk through these and future priorities. The key priority at the moment is to structure the work so that existing volunteers can support future volunteers to find suitable placements.
Before leaving, I have spent some time with Priti, our bookkeeper returned today from three weeks in India. There is much to talk through but I left early to avoid the worst of the evening traffic.
In the News
There is much of interest in the evening news. Promoters of “Intelligent Design” are making a concerted attempt to get their pernicious ideas taken seriously in London schools, and I am pleased that a science teacher interviewed on the news treats this suggestion with the contempt it deserves. There was also an item highlighting research that suggests that 50% of “blue stickers” in London end up being used by people not entitled to them.
But the most interesting news was that Ken Livingston, London’s Mayor, will boycott a conference on Race Equality convened by Trevor Phillips, chair of the new Commission for Equalities and Human Rights.
This very public falling out reflects the realignment that is taking place across the country on issues of diversity and equality. For many years, Britain’s official approach was to promote and embrace diversity, even for its own sake. Of course there was (and is) racism and prejudice, but despite periodic media panics about immigrants and asylum seekers, the political concensus held up Britain’s diversity policies as a success story.
This concensus is now breaking down. The focus is no longer on the right of individual groups to retain their own traditions, beliefs and faiths. The focus now is on how to secure social cohesion without infringing on these rights. This is not an academic shift in bureaucratic rules. It is a fundamental change in public policy, public debate, and in society.
In Watford, it affects Policing, the way the Council funds community groups, the way the Council consults, the way public services are provided, and the way neighbours and friends interact with each other.
For WCVS, it presents a challenge to our Minority Ethnic forum. Should this remain a forum specifically for “ethnic minorities”? Or should it provide a forum for all marginalised and disadvantaged groups? And how does anyone decide who these are? Or should there instead be a focus on social cohesion? Or on equality? Discussions with Watford Borough Council are planned for the new year.
Over the past week I’ve become conscious that I need to spend more time with WCVS staff: some show signs of feeling abandoned and this is not good.
This morning, I undercut the rush hour again and spent two quiet hours alone in the office delegating different bits of work and distributing papers and emails. I left some invoices and correspondence for Sue to deal with, some letters about the transport scheme I passed to Laura, and forwarded some fundraising information to Anne. The Performance Hub is holding a conference in Peterborough in February to promote a series of toolkits to improve organisational performance – these invitations I passed to Vanessa.
I then hoped to spend the remainder of the day on informal one-to-one sessions with staff. Sha-Lee arrived before 9:00 and I spent an hour or so talking her through the next stage of her work collating a new voluntary sector directory for Watford. So far, 989 organisations have been whittled down to just over 500, but this includes a large number that are properly based in Three Rivers, St Albans or Hertsmere, and we are still stymied by our ignorance of local postcodes.
Next, I had a meeting planned for 10:00, but this was cancelled, so I was able to have a brief talk with Farzana. She has survived her first week, but she is keen to get to grips with her new role and is frustrated at the lack of progress. But she has many meetings planned over the next fortnight and will soon become more independent.
I then met with Vanessa, who is keen to attend the February conference in Peterborough. She has also identified an opportunity to secure a small amount of funding to visit local VCS organsiations and carry out “health checks”. These are short visits to organisations to give them a chance to benchmark themselves against “best practice” standards in areas such as planning, accounting, governance, employment and so on. As ever, Vanessa has lots of ideas for how this can operate: between us, we need to get down to work in the new year visiting organisations.
Next, I had a short meeting with Maria, one of WCVS’s volunteer team, who works particularly closely with me on maintaining our website. I ensured that she is now set up on our network with her own user ID and e-mail account, and pass over some information for her to load into the website. She is very smart, but she has only been in the UK from Poland recently and her English is still developing. Briefly, I sympathise with Poland losing so much young talent to the West, but Maria is determined to return to Poland one day, and this will undoubtedly be England’s loss.
After lunch, I sat down with Helen to talk through several initiatives she is involved in with the Volunteer Centre. She has made good progress developing new procedures for the Centre, and we talk through these and future priorities. The key priority at the moment is to structure the work so that existing volunteers can support future volunteers to find suitable placements.
Before leaving, I have spent some time with Priti, our bookkeeper returned today from three weeks in India. There is much to talk through but I left early to avoid the worst of the evening traffic.
In the News
There is much of interest in the evening news. Promoters of “Intelligent Design” are making a concerted attempt to get their pernicious ideas taken seriously in London schools, and I am pleased that a science teacher interviewed on the news treats this suggestion with the contempt it deserves. There was also an item highlighting research that suggests that 50% of “blue stickers” in London end up being used by people not entitled to them.
But the most interesting news was that Ken Livingston, London’s Mayor, will boycott a conference on Race Equality convened by Trevor Phillips, chair of the new Commission for Equalities and Human Rights.
This very public falling out reflects the realignment that is taking place across the country on issues of diversity and equality. For many years, Britain’s official approach was to promote and embrace diversity, even for its own sake. Of course there was (and is) racism and prejudice, but despite periodic media panics about immigrants and asylum seekers, the political concensus held up Britain’s diversity policies as a success story.
This concensus is now breaking down. The focus is no longer on the right of individual groups to retain their own traditions, beliefs and faiths. The focus now is on how to secure social cohesion without infringing on these rights. This is not an academic shift in bureaucratic rules. It is a fundamental change in public policy, public debate, and in society.
In Watford, it affects Policing, the way the Council funds community groups, the way the Council consults, the way public services are provided, and the way neighbours and friends interact with each other.
For WCVS, it presents a challenge to our Minority Ethnic forum. Should this remain a forum specifically for “ethnic minorities”? Or should it provide a forum for all marginalised and disadvantaged groups? And how does anyone decide who these are? Or should there instead be a focus on social cohesion? Or on equality? Discussions with Watford Borough Council are planned for the new year.
Sunday, 26 November 2006
Reading in the digital age
Part of the day I spent completing my mammoth trawl through a database of Watford’s “989 community organisations”. This figure comes from data compiled earlier this year for Herts CVSs, and is a good start to assessing the contribution of the voluntary sector to local life. But many of the organisations are duplicated, defunct, merged, outside Watford, or nothing to do with the voluntary sector at all. And some local voluntary organisations aren’t included. There is still a lot of work to do before we can state with confidence what the contribution of the voluntary sector actually is. However, I completed our initial trawl through the baseline data, and am now ready to meet with Sha-Lee tomorrow to brief her on the next stage.
I also found time to prepare a letter to the Third Sector magazine about their recent article on the Herts Compact.
I finished reading My father and other working-class football heroes, a personal and revealing look at the football industry in the 1950s and ‘60s. Having read a fair amount of lightweight books recently (including Tony Hawks’s One hit wonderland and even an offering from Jeremy Clarkson) I wanted something a bit meatier, so I began Gutenberg elegies by Sven Birkets - an exploration of the fate of writing and reading in the digital age. But within a very few pages my reliable b*llsh*t radar was bleeping loudly ("it was Virginia Woolf who got me thinking about thinking again"). One day I may give myself a second chance with Mr Birkets, but for now we have parted company. Instead I took up The idea of North by Peter Davidson, a historical study of the concept of north in society, art and literature. Maybe this will prove more satisfying.
The evening was spent in quiet repose with Jackie watching a recording of Foyle’s War. Bliss.
Part of the day I spent completing my mammoth trawl through a database of Watford’s “989 community organisations”. This figure comes from data compiled earlier this year for Herts CVSs, and is a good start to assessing the contribution of the voluntary sector to local life. But many of the organisations are duplicated, defunct, merged, outside Watford, or nothing to do with the voluntary sector at all. And some local voluntary organisations aren’t included. There is still a lot of work to do before we can state with confidence what the contribution of the voluntary sector actually is. However, I completed our initial trawl through the baseline data, and am now ready to meet with Sha-Lee tomorrow to brief her on the next stage.
I also found time to prepare a letter to the Third Sector magazine about their recent article on the Herts Compact.
I finished reading My father and other working-class football heroes, a personal and revealing look at the football industry in the 1950s and ‘60s. Having read a fair amount of lightweight books recently (including Tony Hawks’s One hit wonderland and even an offering from Jeremy Clarkson) I wanted something a bit meatier, so I began Gutenberg elegies by Sven Birkets - an exploration of the fate of writing and reading in the digital age. But within a very few pages my reliable b*llsh*t radar was bleeping loudly ("it was Virginia Woolf who got me thinking about thinking again"). One day I may give myself a second chance with Mr Birkets, but for now we have parted company. Instead I took up The idea of North by Peter Davidson, a historical study of the concept of north in society, art and literature. Maybe this will prove more satisfying.
The evening was spent in quiet repose with Jackie watching a recording of Foyle’s War. Bliss.
Saturday, 25 November 2006
Unwinding
In the morning, we collected our grand-daughter Bethany (age 2) and drove her mother Rhiannon to work. Back at home we took delivery of a new sofa and chair, and then took the old furniture (well past any hope of recycling) to the local dump.
Beth is at the delightful age where she talks almost constantly but has difficulty making herself understood. She displayed considerable patience repeating herself over and over until her dull grand-parents finally grasp what she means. At one point, a violent thunderstorm passed nearby and she was unreasonably scared by the thunder.
At lunchtime, we took Beth to visit my parents in Letchworth and spent the afternoon there. Beth enjoyed sitting up at the table for a proper family meal. Also present was Lynn, my eldest brother Bill’s girlfriend for twenty years until 2005. She bought down boxes of Christmas presents all wrapped up. Christmas-wise, Jackie and I are a bit off the pace.
After restoring Beth to her mother, we spent the evening with our neighbours Linda and Allan. Somehow during the day’s activities, Jackie had managed to prepare a wonderful meal with dishes from China, Thailand, India and Greece. We had “the full works” (aperitifs, red wine, dessert wine, and port) and rounded off the evening with a hand of cards while sitting on our new furniture.
In the morning, we collected our grand-daughter Bethany (age 2) and drove her mother Rhiannon to work. Back at home we took delivery of a new sofa and chair, and then took the old furniture (well past any hope of recycling) to the local dump.
Beth is at the delightful age where she talks almost constantly but has difficulty making herself understood. She displayed considerable patience repeating herself over and over until her dull grand-parents finally grasp what she means. At one point, a violent thunderstorm passed nearby and she was unreasonably scared by the thunder.
At lunchtime, we took Beth to visit my parents in Letchworth and spent the afternoon there. Beth enjoyed sitting up at the table for a proper family meal. Also present was Lynn, my eldest brother Bill’s girlfriend for twenty years until 2005. She bought down boxes of Christmas presents all wrapped up. Christmas-wise, Jackie and I are a bit off the pace.
After restoring Beth to her mother, we spent the evening with our neighbours Linda and Allan. Somehow during the day’s activities, Jackie had managed to prepare a wonderful meal with dishes from China, Thailand, India and Greece. We had “the full works” (aperitifs, red wine, dessert wine, and port) and rounded off the evening with a hand of cards while sitting on our new furniture.
Friday, 24 November 2006
Computer problems
I arrived at work at 7:30 and found that our Windows 2003 server had frozen again. I rebooted it: nothing. I rerebooted it: nothing. I tried booting in Safe Mode: nothing.
I called our IT support chap, a wonderful man called Angelo. He suggested I try booting from the Windows 2000 operating system, and this worked: but when I tried to run Scan Disk it couldn’t read the directory. It was getting serious, but Angelo calmly asked me to run several different tests. Looking back, I suppose his calmness was intended to be reassuring, but at the time I was alarmed that he didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation.
By this time, other staff were arriving and unable to work.
The tests completed – all negative – Angelo directed me to a Dutch website to download a patch utility to mend the server's corrupted partition table. How does he know this stuff? We managed to access the internet by-passing the server, download the utility, install it on a floppy disk and reboot the server from the floppy disk. My hopes were high.
While the utility did its business, Pam (my Chair of trustees) arrived for one of our periodic meetings. I explained what was happening, and we talked for maybe 45 minutes. Pam has considerable local knowledge, an acute political sense, and a very sharp brain. Previously, I have learnt much from her and have enjoyed our talks. On this occasion, I was badly distracted and I am sure it showed.
After meeting Pam, I returned to tackle our server. A mere two hours later it was back up and running, to my huge relief.
Back to work
When my computer re-established contact with our e-mail server, my e-mail in-box filled with new e-mails. Most are mere spam, but it takes time to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Among the grains of wheat I received from other CVS Directors in Herts several e-mail queries about a database exercise we are all embarked on. I don’t mind queries, except in this instance the issues are mostly addressed in the guidance I’ve already circulated and this guidance has been discussed in several previous e-mail exchanges. To be fair, though, there ere are some additional questions and nuances that haven’t been covered before, so I send detailed and good humoured replies.
I spent the remainder of the day preparing for the coming week, arranging meetings and trying to plan and prioritise different projects and workloads.
I arrived at work at 7:30 and found that our Windows 2003 server had frozen again. I rebooted it: nothing. I rerebooted it: nothing. I tried booting in Safe Mode: nothing.
I called our IT support chap, a wonderful man called Angelo. He suggested I try booting from the Windows 2000 operating system, and this worked: but when I tried to run Scan Disk it couldn’t read the directory. It was getting serious, but Angelo calmly asked me to run several different tests. Looking back, I suppose his calmness was intended to be reassuring, but at the time I was alarmed that he didn’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation.
By this time, other staff were arriving and unable to work.
The tests completed – all negative – Angelo directed me to a Dutch website to download a patch utility to mend the server's corrupted partition table. How does he know this stuff? We managed to access the internet by-passing the server, download the utility, install it on a floppy disk and reboot the server from the floppy disk. My hopes were high.
While the utility did its business, Pam (my Chair of trustees) arrived for one of our periodic meetings. I explained what was happening, and we talked for maybe 45 minutes. Pam has considerable local knowledge, an acute political sense, and a very sharp brain. Previously, I have learnt much from her and have enjoyed our talks. On this occasion, I was badly distracted and I am sure it showed.
After meeting Pam, I returned to tackle our server. A mere two hours later it was back up and running, to my huge relief.
Back to work
When my computer re-established contact with our e-mail server, my e-mail in-box filled with new e-mails. Most are mere spam, but it takes time to sort out the wheat from the chaff. Among the grains of wheat I received from other CVS Directors in Herts several e-mail queries about a database exercise we are all embarked on. I don’t mind queries, except in this instance the issues are mostly addressed in the guidance I’ve already circulated and this guidance has been discussed in several previous e-mail exchanges. To be fair, though, there ere are some additional questions and nuances that haven’t been covered before, so I send detailed and good humoured replies.
I spent the remainder of the day preparing for the coming week, arranging meetings and trying to plan and prioritise different projects and workloads.
Thursday, 23 November 2006
Six monthly monitoring
I arrived at work around 7:30 after driving through some very stormy weather. Anne was already settling into her new office and provided me with some very welcome cups of tea. I cleared out my e-mail and then Anne and I met again to review our Reaching Communities bid.
Our server crashed. It has happened twice before but has been ok on re-booting. This morning, it crashed, was re-booted, then crashed again an hour later, before finally stablilising.
At 10:00, WCVS had its half yearly monitoring visit from Kim at Watford Borough Council. She was satisfied with our reports and data, and seemed pelased with the many changes being made here.
Disability Law Service
After replying to sundry e-mails, I left the office around 1:30 to visit the Disability Law Service in Whitechapel. The group provides specialist legal advice to disabled people and their carers, and I have been involved, mostly as a trustee, for six or seven years. Their Director Linda is currently trying to steer the organisation through the Lord Chancellor’s new proposals for funding advice agencies and it seems clear to me that he is making a complete hash of the re-organisation.
After a talk with Linda, I spent an hour or so with their finance officer, Natalia, talking through the trustees’ need for clearer financial reports. She is a good and intelligent accountant and understands the issues.
Doctor's Tonic
I arrived back in Welwyn Garden City at around 7:30, and after eating, Jackie and I popped into town to visit the Doctor’s Tonic. This is WGC’s old cottage hospital, now a town centre pub and WGC’s premier music venue. The licence has now been taken over by our friends Bill and Angie, and this is their opening night. The place is very busy and Jackie and I meet lots of old friends. Jackie’s daughter Rhiannon is helping out behind the bar. We have time for a quick chat with our hosts and wish them well. Alan, a porter at the local hospital, is forming a band and wants to know if I will play drums. How would I find the time? But I like Alan a lot and of course I am flattered, so I tell him to give me a call.
I arrived at work around 7:30 after driving through some very stormy weather. Anne was already settling into her new office and provided me with some very welcome cups of tea. I cleared out my e-mail and then Anne and I met again to review our Reaching Communities bid.
Our server crashed. It has happened twice before but has been ok on re-booting. This morning, it crashed, was re-booted, then crashed again an hour later, before finally stablilising.
At 10:00, WCVS had its half yearly monitoring visit from Kim at Watford Borough Council. She was satisfied with our reports and data, and seemed pelased with the many changes being made here.
Disability Law Service
After replying to sundry e-mails, I left the office around 1:30 to visit the Disability Law Service in Whitechapel. The group provides specialist legal advice to disabled people and their carers, and I have been involved, mostly as a trustee, for six or seven years. Their Director Linda is currently trying to steer the organisation through the Lord Chancellor’s new proposals for funding advice agencies and it seems clear to me that he is making a complete hash of the re-organisation.
After a talk with Linda, I spent an hour or so with their finance officer, Natalia, talking through the trustees’ need for clearer financial reports. She is a good and intelligent accountant and understands the issues.
Doctor's Tonic
I arrived back in Welwyn Garden City at around 7:30, and after eating, Jackie and I popped into town to visit the Doctor’s Tonic. This is WGC’s old cottage hospital, now a town centre pub and WGC’s premier music venue. The licence has now been taken over by our friends Bill and Angie, and this is their opening night. The place is very busy and Jackie and I meet lots of old friends. Jackie’s daughter Rhiannon is helping out behind the bar. We have time for a quick chat with our hosts and wish them well. Alan, a porter at the local hospital, is forming a band and wants to know if I will play drums. How would I find the time? But I like Alan a lot and of course I am flattered, so I tell him to give me a call.
Wednesday, 22 November 2006
Hospitals and Databases
This morning I accompanied Jackie to hospital for a “procedure” and then returned home to spend the remainder of the day working on databases, WCVS’s 2007-08 budget, and our ongoing survey of local voluntary groups.
For our survey, I am increasingly obstructed by my ignorance of local postcodes. I have a lsit of more than 1,000 local groups to review, but how many are actually based in Watford? The easiest way to tell is from postcodes, but no-one can provide a list of which codes are inside the borough’s boundarises, and which lie outside. Watford Borough Council will look into it for me (they must know somewhere) and the Royal Mail offer to sell me a database for £1,500.
This morning I accompanied Jackie to hospital for a “procedure” and then returned home to spend the remainder of the day working on databases, WCVS’s 2007-08 budget, and our ongoing survey of local voluntary groups.
For our survey, I am increasingly obstructed by my ignorance of local postcodes. I have a lsit of more than 1,000 local groups to review, but how many are actually based in Watford? The easiest way to tell is from postcodes, but no-one can provide a list of which codes are inside the borough’s boundarises, and which lie outside. Watford Borough Council will look into it for me (they must know somewhere) and the Royal Mail offer to sell me a database for £1,500.
Tuesday, 21 November 2006
Commuting again
At around 7:30 am, I was sitting in my car with the engine turned off, stuck on the A414 south of St Albans. I swore. I particularly swore that in future I will do all I can to avoid driving the 25 miles to Watford during the rush hour. In clear traffic, the journey takes around 45 minutes. In the rush hour, a minimum of an hour. Sometimes two. This morning it took me two and a quarter hours.
I arrived at nearly ten o-clock. Farzana, WCVS’s new Connexions worker, had arrived for our 9:30 introductory meeting and Sue had already been given her a tour of the building and introduced her to new colleagues. Refreshed with a welcome cup of tea from Sue, Farzana and I began our meeting straight away.
Although she had been through a recruitment process with the Watford Racial Equality Council, this had been early in the summer. This morning was my first meeting with Farzana and she knew little about the work that lay before her. Accordingly, we spoke together for about two hours, covering the demise of WREC, the structure of WCVS, her induction programme, working methods, contract details, key performance measures and targets, key contacts, monitoring and supervision, communications, technology, and so on. Farzana asked intelligent questions and seemed to take everything in. I left her at 12:00 to introduce herself to the Connexions team opposite us on the High Street.
I met again with Anne to talk through her detailed reworking of our partnership bid to Reaching Communities. We agreed on some further changes.
A postponed meeting
After some further brief talks to other colleagues, I met with Sue to talk about the Voluntary Sector Alliance meeting scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. She reported that we had received more than a dozen apologies already, and only three confirmed attenders. The intention of the meeting was to talk through key points from WCVS’s new strategic plan, and identify a new more focused role for the VSA meetings. It seemed unlikely that I would secure the necessary concensus with only three people present. After a brief chat with Sue, I decided the only option was to postpone the meeting until after Christmas. I invited Sue to select a new date from my diary and advise people asap.
New Hope Trust
At 2:00, I left the office for a meeting at the New Hope Trust. It was started by a handful of Christian worshippers who noticed small groups of homeless people camping out in St Mary’s churchyard. Determined not to “pass by on the other side”, these Christians befriended the homeless and asked what they could do to help. Less than ten years after this, the New Hope Trust is one of the voluntary sector’s great success stories in Watford and now offers a range of short- and long-term accommodation, as well as activities, training and social support.
Although an unashamed atheist, I have no general prejudice against religion and take people as I find them. At the New Hope Trust, I find people utterly dedicated to helping others, and extremely efficient at organising programmes of practical support. There is some Christian symbolism and decoration, and the staff and volunteers are quite clear that their faith provides their inspiration and motivation. But this is after all a free country, and Watford is a community enriched by diverse cultures and beliefs.
The purpose of my visit this afternoon was to talk about developing databases to streamline some of their administrative systems. After a brief talk through data structures and business goals, I leave promising to provide a database template before Christmas.
From the New Hope Trust I drive straight to Welwyn Garden City, cunningly avoiding the rush hour, and arriving in time to collect my new glasses from the optician.
At around 7:30 am, I was sitting in my car with the engine turned off, stuck on the A414 south of St Albans. I swore. I particularly swore that in future I will do all I can to avoid driving the 25 miles to Watford during the rush hour. In clear traffic, the journey takes around 45 minutes. In the rush hour, a minimum of an hour. Sometimes two. This morning it took me two and a quarter hours.
I arrived at nearly ten o-clock. Farzana, WCVS’s new Connexions worker, had arrived for our 9:30 introductory meeting and Sue had already been given her a tour of the building and introduced her to new colleagues. Refreshed with a welcome cup of tea from Sue, Farzana and I began our meeting straight away.
Although she had been through a recruitment process with the Watford Racial Equality Council, this had been early in the summer. This morning was my first meeting with Farzana and she knew little about the work that lay before her. Accordingly, we spoke together for about two hours, covering the demise of WREC, the structure of WCVS, her induction programme, working methods, contract details, key performance measures and targets, key contacts, monitoring and supervision, communications, technology, and so on. Farzana asked intelligent questions and seemed to take everything in. I left her at 12:00 to introduce herself to the Connexions team opposite us on the High Street.
I met again with Anne to talk through her detailed reworking of our partnership bid to Reaching Communities. We agreed on some further changes.
A postponed meeting
After some further brief talks to other colleagues, I met with Sue to talk about the Voluntary Sector Alliance meeting scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. She reported that we had received more than a dozen apologies already, and only three confirmed attenders. The intention of the meeting was to talk through key points from WCVS’s new strategic plan, and identify a new more focused role for the VSA meetings. It seemed unlikely that I would secure the necessary concensus with only three people present. After a brief chat with Sue, I decided the only option was to postpone the meeting until after Christmas. I invited Sue to select a new date from my diary and advise people asap.
New Hope Trust
At 2:00, I left the office for a meeting at the New Hope Trust. It was started by a handful of Christian worshippers who noticed small groups of homeless people camping out in St Mary’s churchyard. Determined not to “pass by on the other side”, these Christians befriended the homeless and asked what they could do to help. Less than ten years after this, the New Hope Trust is one of the voluntary sector’s great success stories in Watford and now offers a range of short- and long-term accommodation, as well as activities, training and social support.
Although an unashamed atheist, I have no general prejudice against religion and take people as I find them. At the New Hope Trust, I find people utterly dedicated to helping others, and extremely efficient at organising programmes of practical support. There is some Christian symbolism and decoration, and the staff and volunteers are quite clear that their faith provides their inspiration and motivation. But this is after all a free country, and Watford is a community enriched by diverse cultures and beliefs.
The purpose of my visit this afternoon was to talk about developing databases to streamline some of their administrative systems. After a brief talk through data structures and business goals, I leave promising to provide a database template before Christmas.
From the New Hope Trust I drive straight to Welwyn Garden City, cunningly avoiding the rush hour, and arriving in time to collect my new glasses from the optician.
Monday, 20 November 2006
This morning I attended a meeting at the Fielder Centre on Hatfield Business Park. The meeting was for Connexions contract managers in Hertfordshire. Apart from Connexions staff, there were about 25 people present, of which I was very much the new boy.
It was interesting to learn what was happening elsewhere with Connexions contracts, and to begin to understand the full scope and structure of Connexions work. As with any project, there is a whole new language for me to learn: CAYP, CSF, APIR, CAF, LSM, ESC … Everyone was very helpful and I am sure it will all come together in time.
Also present at the conference was Mohamed Fawzi (of Dacorum Multicultural Association) who sits on the Hertfordshire Infrastructure Consortium with me; we agreed to arrange a meeting to talk about the demise of WREC and the future of the Watford Minority Ethnic Forum.
Back at the office, I had lots of messages and e-mails, including several about the WBC lease proposals. Two organisations said my letter was the first they had heard about the proposals, despite one of them potentially having its rent increasing by more than 100%. Clearly there has been some poor communication somewhere along the line – but where?
Sue sent out a further reminder about Wednesday’s meeting of the Watford Voluntary Sector Alliance. So far there are several apologies and few confirmed attendees for this important meeting. WCVS’s newly adopted Strategic Plan posits a central role for the VSA so I hope there is a good attendance.
The remainder of the day was devoted to the usual business of telephone calls and e-mails, messages, fixing computers, examining databases and catching up with staff.
I stayed late to meet Cllr Shirena Counter (WBC Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Community Services) and Alison Stainsby (WBC Head of Leisure and Community Services) for a preliminary talk through the new WCVS Strategic Plan. The meeting went very well and bodes well forWCVS's future working relationship with WBC.
I returned to the office to complete some data cleaning for our Directory project, and left around 9:00 pm. My last late night this week!
It was interesting to learn what was happening elsewhere with Connexions contracts, and to begin to understand the full scope and structure of Connexions work. As with any project, there is a whole new language for me to learn: CAYP, CSF, APIR, CAF, LSM, ESC … Everyone was very helpful and I am sure it will all come together in time.
Also present at the conference was Mohamed Fawzi (of Dacorum Multicultural Association) who sits on the Hertfordshire Infrastructure Consortium with me; we agreed to arrange a meeting to talk about the demise of WREC and the future of the Watford Minority Ethnic Forum.
Back at the office, I had lots of messages and e-mails, including several about the WBC lease proposals. Two organisations said my letter was the first they had heard about the proposals, despite one of them potentially having its rent increasing by more than 100%. Clearly there has been some poor communication somewhere along the line – but where?
Sue sent out a further reminder about Wednesday’s meeting of the Watford Voluntary Sector Alliance. So far there are several apologies and few confirmed attendees for this important meeting. WCVS’s newly adopted Strategic Plan posits a central role for the VSA so I hope there is a good attendance.
The remainder of the day was devoted to the usual business of telephone calls and e-mails, messages, fixing computers, examining databases and catching up with staff.
I stayed late to meet Cllr Shirena Counter (WBC Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Community Services) and Alison Stainsby (WBC Head of Leisure and Community Services) for a preliminary talk through the new WCVS Strategic Plan. The meeting went very well and bodes well forWCVS's future working relationship with WBC.
I returned to the office to complete some data cleaning for our Directory project, and left around 9:00 pm. My last late night this week!
Sunday, 19 November 2006
The nature of forgiveness
I rose early and left at 8:30 to meet my daughter Nancy in Shoeburyness, Essex. During the drive, I listened to an item on Radio 4 about the Holocaust Education Trust, who have just secured additional funding to take UK schoolchildren to visit concentration camp sites in central and eastern Europe. Several visiting children were interviewed about their experiences: one girl from north London recording that it had transfromed her life.
It bought to mind a passage in The War and Uncle Walter in which he wrote that while (as a good Christian) he could forgive the Nazis for what they had done to him, he could not forgive what they had done to others, as this would have been an abdication of his Christian responsibility.
Birthday outing
Nancy was excited about her birthday and we had a wonderful and exhausting day at the Science Museum in London. I am pleased that my children Bobby (18) and nancy (now 10) both know the London museums as well as I did at their age.
Bobby travelled up from Brighton to join us for a meal and he presented Nancy with a picture he had made for her. She filled up with pride and admiration for her older brother. It was very touching.
Nancy was also very appreciative of the all her other gifts: laptop computer, Disney Witch dolls, cuddly hamsters, trinkets and books.
I arrived home at about 10:00 in the evening, and spent a quiet hour with Jackie: she knitting and me reading through the Connexions Quality Assurance Framework. Lovely.
I rose early and left at 8:30 to meet my daughter Nancy in Shoeburyness, Essex. During the drive, I listened to an item on Radio 4 about the Holocaust Education Trust, who have just secured additional funding to take UK schoolchildren to visit concentration camp sites in central and eastern Europe. Several visiting children were interviewed about their experiences: one girl from north London recording that it had transfromed her life.
It bought to mind a passage in The War and Uncle Walter in which he wrote that while (as a good Christian) he could forgive the Nazis for what they had done to him, he could not forgive what they had done to others, as this would have been an abdication of his Christian responsibility.
Birthday outing
Nancy was excited about her birthday and we had a wonderful and exhausting day at the Science Museum in London. I am pleased that my children Bobby (18) and nancy (now 10) both know the London museums as well as I did at their age.
Bobby travelled up from Brighton to join us for a meal and he presented Nancy with a picture he had made for her. She filled up with pride and admiration for her older brother. It was very touching.
Nancy was also very appreciative of the all her other gifts: laptop computer, Disney Witch dolls, cuddly hamsters, trinkets and books.
I arrived home at about 10:00 in the evening, and spent a quiet hour with Jackie: she knitting and me reading through the Connexions Quality Assurance Framework. Lovely.
Saturday, 18 November 2006
I first tackled the urgent need to fix the laptop computer that was to be my daughter Nancy’s tenth birthday present on the morrow. Over the past week, Jackie and I have spent hours trying to fix its dodgy keyboard. A Dell specialist had quoted £125 just to look at it. But this morning it finally all got sorted out. Hurrah! We wrapped Nancy's presents and tackled a few household chores.
In the evening we visited my parents in Letchworth.
In the evening we visited my parents in Letchworth.
Friday, 17 November 2006
The "Magic Oven"
I stayed in the office last night until I had cleared my physical and electronic in-trays (shooting off an array of e-mails to different people) and I also succeeded in getting out fifty enquiry letters to groups affected by WBC’s lease proposals. I do enjoy a challenge.
I finally left the office in the dead of night and was home in forty-five minutes. Jackie was sound asleep and had left me a note saying my dinner was in the “magic oven”. It was too late to eat, so I just drank some tea and finished reading The War and Uncle Walter, the WW2 diaries of a civil servant approaching retirement. This book had fascinated me over the last week or so.
Kiss and tea
On Friday morning, Jackie woke me at 11:00 with a kiss and a cup of tea, saying she was off to her dental appointment. I roused myself slowly, enjoyed a long luxourious bath, and then gave the kitchen a thorough clean. Only moments after finishing the floor, aged Ken came through the cat flap with muddy paws.
To get my mind off Ken, I read through a few papers and made some telephone calls following up a few things from the previous night.
Then it was time for my own dential appointment. To counter the perennial media stories of immigrants and asylum seekers, it is worth recording that my dentist was educated in Sri Lanka and trained in Denmark, but is paying taxes in the UK and working for the NHS. On the actual appointment, I will simply say that evolution has done nothing to prepare us for having foreign objects inserted in our mouths.
Later, I also visited the optician to get my eyes sorted out, and the hairdresser (a remarkable lady called Jane).
Friday night, Jackie and I enjoyed a curry and watched BBC Children In Need.
I stayed in the office last night until I had cleared my physical and electronic in-trays (shooting off an array of e-mails to different people) and I also succeeded in getting out fifty enquiry letters to groups affected by WBC’s lease proposals. I do enjoy a challenge.
I finally left the office in the dead of night and was home in forty-five minutes. Jackie was sound asleep and had left me a note saying my dinner was in the “magic oven”. It was too late to eat, so I just drank some tea and finished reading The War and Uncle Walter, the WW2 diaries of a civil servant approaching retirement. This book had fascinated me over the last week or so.
Kiss and tea
On Friday morning, Jackie woke me at 11:00 with a kiss and a cup of tea, saying she was off to her dental appointment. I roused myself slowly, enjoyed a long luxourious bath, and then gave the kitchen a thorough clean. Only moments after finishing the floor, aged Ken came through the cat flap with muddy paws.
To get my mind off Ken, I read through a few papers and made some telephone calls following up a few things from the previous night.
Then it was time for my own dential appointment. To counter the perennial media stories of immigrants and asylum seekers, it is worth recording that my dentist was educated in Sri Lanka and trained in Denmark, but is paying taxes in the UK and working for the NHS. On the actual appointment, I will simply say that evolution has done nothing to prepare us for having foreign objects inserted in our mouths.
Later, I also visited the optician to get my eyes sorted out, and the hairdresser (a remarkable lady called Jane).
Friday night, Jackie and I enjoyed a curry and watched BBC Children In Need.
Thursday, 16 November 2006
A bad traffic day
I arrived at the office this morning just after 10:00, having spent more than two hours driving the 25 miles from WGC. I started the day about an hour behind schedule and was not a happy bunny.
Meetings meetings
On arrival, I immediately embarked on the day’s meetings: Saud was waiting at WCVS to introduce himself as a new Personal Advisor for Muslim youth working on the Connexions project, then I met with the existing Connexions worker Des, then met with Sue on the office redecoration programme, to discuss accommodation for local Scout groups I visited Roger at the YMCA, then met with YMCA CEO Phil, then went on to meet Vivienne at HomeStart, then returned to meet one of our volunteers who I had asked to do some work updating the website, and then caught up with Anne to resolve some IT problems. Somewhere in all this I overlooked a meeting I had scheduled with Anne and Vanessa to discuss the Reaching Communities funding bid; I must send them my belated apologies.
The trip to the YMCA was very enlightening. Like many, I had my prejudices about the YMCA: I have only a poor grasp of Victorian notions of Christian manliness, a better understanding of homelessness and youth issues, but no understanding whatsoever of 1970s disco music. The YMCA building in Watford is massive, rising high above the shops and shopping centres on the adjacent High Street. Inside, the YMCA premises are clean and bright, and offer an abundance of useful facilities including meeting spaces, dance studios, restaurants, gyms (yes, all in the plural) and a squash court (singular).
Roger, based at YMCA and elsewhere, is the Millennium Volunteers co-ordinator for Hertfordshire, and also has some continued engagement with the Scout movement. He is also one of my trustees. We had a very short and purposeful discussion about proposals from WBC to review leases for Scout premises in North Watford. Roger is very straightforward and I like him more each time I meet him.
Phil (another WCVS trustee) also oozes professionalism and commitment. He bought me lunch in the YMCA restaurant, then gave me a wonderfully succinct political history of Watford Borough, a pen picture of YMCA activities in Watford, and a tour of the YMCA’s facilities.
Then onto HomeStart, to meet Vivienne, yet another WCVS trustee. It was good to see Vivienne and HomeStart’s premises, although they are rather smaller than YMCA’s comprising only one open plan office with four desks and a small meeting room. HomeStart is the UK’s leading family support charity, supporting families through difficulties such as illness, disability, bereavement and poverty.
In two-tier local government, child and family support is a County responsibility, so HomeStart receives most of its funding from Hertfordshire County Council rather than Watford Borough Council. A year or so ago, HCC appointed independent consultants to review the work of HomeStart across Hertfordshire. The result was a glowing report highlighting the value of the work done and the positive outcomes. Vivienne though that sufficient had been done to secure future funding for the network. But a surprise was in store. HCC agreed to continue funding at the previous level, but they also introduced a new formula to target funding on particular areas. The result of this change is that HomeStart Watford will lose perhaps £15,000 pa in funding and will have to significantly reduce its activities locally. Throughout the County, three HomeStart organisations will lose, and five will benefit.
I have no first-hand knowledge of HCC’s policy, but from Vivienne’s report it does seem to have been badly handled. There is only one transition year, no impact assessment, and no additional funding to cover the costs of transition (redundancy payments, recruitment costs, etc), no clear explanation of how and why the new formula is being introduced or how it works, and no way of ensuring that expanding HomeStart services in one area will actually benefit the needs that are presumably being targeted. Vivienne and I talked through several possible responses, and I wish her and her project well.
I eventually emerged from my final meetings, with Anne, at about 6:00 pm. Before leaving the office for the day, I still have to finalise arrangements for the review of council leases, deal with around fifty e-mails, and select the files I need to take home to prepare for forthcoming meetings with Connexions, WBC’s portfolio holder for voluntary sector issues, Watford’s Voluntary Sector Alliance, WCVS’s networking lunch, our WBC grants officer, Investors In People, the editor of the Watford Observer, the Herts Infrastructure Consortium, Watford Learning Partnership, Herts Compact group and the Herts CVS group.
Smile, boy, that's the style
I must confess, for the first time since starting at WCVS, I feel a little swamped. But am I downhearted? No. Rather, I count my blessing. I believe in the value of WCVS; I enjoy the work and the people, I have a wonderful family, and a bit of hard work never hurt anyone. I will stay late tonight to secure what progress I can, and I have tomorrow (Friday) and the weekend at home to see my family and plan the work ahead. Now I worry that I sound smug.
I arrived at the office this morning just after 10:00, having spent more than two hours driving the 25 miles from WGC. I started the day about an hour behind schedule and was not a happy bunny.
Meetings meetings
On arrival, I immediately embarked on the day’s meetings: Saud was waiting at WCVS to introduce himself as a new Personal Advisor for Muslim youth working on the Connexions project, then I met with the existing Connexions worker Des, then met with Sue on the office redecoration programme, to discuss accommodation for local Scout groups I visited Roger at the YMCA, then met with YMCA CEO Phil, then went on to meet Vivienne at HomeStart, then returned to meet one of our volunteers who I had asked to do some work updating the website, and then caught up with Anne to resolve some IT problems. Somewhere in all this I overlooked a meeting I had scheduled with Anne and Vanessa to discuss the Reaching Communities funding bid; I must send them my belated apologies.
The trip to the YMCA was very enlightening. Like many, I had my prejudices about the YMCA: I have only a poor grasp of Victorian notions of Christian manliness, a better understanding of homelessness and youth issues, but no understanding whatsoever of 1970s disco music. The YMCA building in Watford is massive, rising high above the shops and shopping centres on the adjacent High Street. Inside, the YMCA premises are clean and bright, and offer an abundance of useful facilities including meeting spaces, dance studios, restaurants, gyms (yes, all in the plural) and a squash court (singular).
Roger, based at YMCA and elsewhere, is the Millennium Volunteers co-ordinator for Hertfordshire, and also has some continued engagement with the Scout movement. He is also one of my trustees. We had a very short and purposeful discussion about proposals from WBC to review leases for Scout premises in North Watford. Roger is very straightforward and I like him more each time I meet him.
Phil (another WCVS trustee) also oozes professionalism and commitment. He bought me lunch in the YMCA restaurant, then gave me a wonderfully succinct political history of Watford Borough, a pen picture of YMCA activities in Watford, and a tour of the YMCA’s facilities.
Then onto HomeStart, to meet Vivienne, yet another WCVS trustee. It was good to see Vivienne and HomeStart’s premises, although they are rather smaller than YMCA’s comprising only one open plan office with four desks and a small meeting room. HomeStart is the UK’s leading family support charity, supporting families through difficulties such as illness, disability, bereavement and poverty.
In two-tier local government, child and family support is a County responsibility, so HomeStart receives most of its funding from Hertfordshire County Council rather than Watford Borough Council. A year or so ago, HCC appointed independent consultants to review the work of HomeStart across Hertfordshire. The result was a glowing report highlighting the value of the work done and the positive outcomes. Vivienne though that sufficient had been done to secure future funding for the network. But a surprise was in store. HCC agreed to continue funding at the previous level, but they also introduced a new formula to target funding on particular areas. The result of this change is that HomeStart Watford will lose perhaps £15,000 pa in funding and will have to significantly reduce its activities locally. Throughout the County, three HomeStart organisations will lose, and five will benefit.
I have no first-hand knowledge of HCC’s policy, but from Vivienne’s report it does seem to have been badly handled. There is only one transition year, no impact assessment, and no additional funding to cover the costs of transition (redundancy payments, recruitment costs, etc), no clear explanation of how and why the new formula is being introduced or how it works, and no way of ensuring that expanding HomeStart services in one area will actually benefit the needs that are presumably being targeted. Vivienne and I talked through several possible responses, and I wish her and her project well.
I eventually emerged from my final meetings, with Anne, at about 6:00 pm. Before leaving the office for the day, I still have to finalise arrangements for the review of council leases, deal with around fifty e-mails, and select the files I need to take home to prepare for forthcoming meetings with Connexions, WBC’s portfolio holder for voluntary sector issues, Watford’s Voluntary Sector Alliance, WCVS’s networking lunch, our WBC grants officer, Investors In People, the editor of the Watford Observer, the Herts Infrastructure Consortium, Watford Learning Partnership, Herts Compact group and the Herts CVS group.
Smile, boy, that's the style
I must confess, for the first time since starting at WCVS, I feel a little swamped. But am I downhearted? No. Rather, I count my blessing. I believe in the value of WCVS; I enjoy the work and the people, I have a wonderful family, and a bit of hard work never hurt anyone. I will stay late tonight to secure what progress I can, and I have tomorrow (Friday) and the weekend at home to see my family and plan the work ahead. Now I worry that I sound smug.
Wednesday, 15 November 2006
Premises, premises
Arrived this morning nice and early, arranged salary payments for the month, including for new Connexions staff, and deleted my daily quote of spam.
I left shortly before 9:00 for a meeting at the Guideposts Trust (a very effective mental health charity). The group recently had an art exhibition at Watford Museuma dn I had met with two of the staff in October and suggested that WCVS would take some of the works to display on long-term loan. But on arrival at Guideposts I discovered that the people I was meeting had been delayed. I could not wait as I had another meeting to make.
I met our WBC grants officer, Kim, who took me to view possible new premises for WCVS on the first floor of the purpose-built community centre in St Mary’s churchyard, right in the centre of Watford High Street. CAB already occupy part of the building and they were extremely busy as usual. Relate also occupy part of the building, although their working day starts rather later.
At present, WCVS occupies premises at the top of the High Street, close to the Town Hall. The building accommodates eleven members of staff, plus a volunteer team of about sixteen (who help run some of our core services like the Volunteer Centre and the Voluntary Transport scheme), a large archive, storage for equipment available for rental, a reprographics room, kichen, and two meeting rooms available used by ourselves and local charities. But the premises are old and in desparate need of modernisation. And with the recent closure of the Watford Racial Equality Council (once our co-tenants), it is true that there are three empty offices.
But this morning it was immediately clear that the premises offered at St Mary’s were far too small. Maybe, we could just about have sqashed all the staff into the offices. Maybe. But there was certainly no room for storage or meetings. Or for volunteers.
WBC is right to explore options with us. Much voluntary sector accommodation is in poor condition, inappropriate, and inefficeintly used. There are gains to be made by sharing services and facilities. But on this occasion, the disparity between our needs and the available space was abundantly apparent to everyone.
On returning to the office, I sent an e-mail to Shamim (head of CAB) and Adele (head of Relate) tentatively suggesting that there might be ways of sharing the building between the three organisations. But CAB and Relate have little to gain from the exercise, and even with a massive overhaul of it will be a very tight squeeze.
At the office, I was pleased to see that the big re-organisation continues. Sue, WCVS’s Services Officer and a natural organiser, is overseeing a programme of room changes to make way for new Connexions staff, while simultaneously co-ordinating a redecoration programme (with labour provided by voluneers on probation schemes) and supervising the new integrated reception area (until recently, WCVS had separate arrangements for itself, the Volunteer Centre, and the Voluntary Transport scheme).
Elsewhere, Helen was busy pulling together new procedures for the Volunteer Centre, Anne and Vanessa are striving to pull together our complex partnership bid to Reaching Communities (there are so many skills involved in fundraising), Laura was orgaising the Voluntary Transport scheme, and volunteers were busy on a host of other tasks. Everyone was extremely busy of course, but there is a feeling around that Sue has got the fun job – although I know that Sue doesn’t see it that way.
National Animal Welfare Trust
On my way home, I dropped off to meet Allegra, fundraiser at the National Animal Welfare Fund on the outskirts of Watford. NAWT staff occupy small offices at the front of a large area for accommodating animals. I had little time to look around, but the noisiest animals were certainly the dogs.
Allegra was interested to learn more about WCVS and hopes that NAWT will become more engaged with other local charities and groups. She was accompanied at her desk by a small dog that curled lovingly at her feet, but howled with anxiety when Allegra rose to see me out. NAWT should certainly be a popular place with animal-loving volunteers.
At home, Jackie and I spent a large part of the evening trying to fix a laptop computer, and I sat up for a while finalising some correspondence.
Arrived this morning nice and early, arranged salary payments for the month, including for new Connexions staff, and deleted my daily quote of spam.
I left shortly before 9:00 for a meeting at the Guideposts Trust (a very effective mental health charity). The group recently had an art exhibition at Watford Museuma dn I had met with two of the staff in October and suggested that WCVS would take some of the works to display on long-term loan. But on arrival at Guideposts I discovered that the people I was meeting had been delayed. I could not wait as I had another meeting to make.
I met our WBC grants officer, Kim, who took me to view possible new premises for WCVS on the first floor of the purpose-built community centre in St Mary’s churchyard, right in the centre of Watford High Street. CAB already occupy part of the building and they were extremely busy as usual. Relate also occupy part of the building, although their working day starts rather later.
At present, WCVS occupies premises at the top of the High Street, close to the Town Hall. The building accommodates eleven members of staff, plus a volunteer team of about sixteen (who help run some of our core services like the Volunteer Centre and the Voluntary Transport scheme), a large archive, storage for equipment available for rental, a reprographics room, kichen, and two meeting rooms available used by ourselves and local charities. But the premises are old and in desparate need of modernisation. And with the recent closure of the Watford Racial Equality Council (once our co-tenants), it is true that there are three empty offices.
But this morning it was immediately clear that the premises offered at St Mary’s were far too small. Maybe, we could just about have sqashed all the staff into the offices. Maybe. But there was certainly no room for storage or meetings. Or for volunteers.
WBC is right to explore options with us. Much voluntary sector accommodation is in poor condition, inappropriate, and inefficeintly used. There are gains to be made by sharing services and facilities. But on this occasion, the disparity between our needs and the available space was abundantly apparent to everyone.
On returning to the office, I sent an e-mail to Shamim (head of CAB) and Adele (head of Relate) tentatively suggesting that there might be ways of sharing the building between the three organisations. But CAB and Relate have little to gain from the exercise, and even with a massive overhaul of it will be a very tight squeeze.
At the office, I was pleased to see that the big re-organisation continues. Sue, WCVS’s Services Officer and a natural organiser, is overseeing a programme of room changes to make way for new Connexions staff, while simultaneously co-ordinating a redecoration programme (with labour provided by voluneers on probation schemes) and supervising the new integrated reception area (until recently, WCVS had separate arrangements for itself, the Volunteer Centre, and the Voluntary Transport scheme).
Elsewhere, Helen was busy pulling together new procedures for the Volunteer Centre, Anne and Vanessa are striving to pull together our complex partnership bid to Reaching Communities (there are so many skills involved in fundraising), Laura was orgaising the Voluntary Transport scheme, and volunteers were busy on a host of other tasks. Everyone was extremely busy of course, but there is a feeling around that Sue has got the fun job – although I know that Sue doesn’t see it that way.
National Animal Welfare Trust
On my way home, I dropped off to meet Allegra, fundraiser at the National Animal Welfare Fund on the outskirts of Watford. NAWT staff occupy small offices at the front of a large area for accommodating animals. I had little time to look around, but the noisiest animals were certainly the dogs.
Allegra was interested to learn more about WCVS and hopes that NAWT will become more engaged with other local charities and groups. She was accompanied at her desk by a small dog that curled lovingly at her feet, but howled with anxiety when Allegra rose to see me out. NAWT should certainly be a popular place with animal-loving volunteers.
At home, Jackie and I spent a large part of the evening trying to fix a laptop computer, and I sat up for a while finalising some correspondence.
Tuesday, 14 November 2006
Mild morning
Determined to avoid yesterday’s traffic, I managed this morning to leave home before dawn. It was a wonderfully mild morning and within a few miles, the iron grey light of dawn helped illuminate the way to Watford and I arrived just before 7:30.
I explored further the WBC papers I’ve received on grants and accommodation, and prepared some materials to go on the WCVS website.
At 9:30 I met with Louise, the local manager for our new Connexions contract. She was extremely helpful explaining to me the lore of Connexions and the mysteries of their targets and standards. By the time Louise left, I felt much reassured. I think we will work well together.
My meeting with Louise was regularly interrupted by telephone calls. I knew we were going to be short-staffed today, but the one member of staff I expected called in sick, and then the volunteer who was to help on the reception desk also called in sick. When Sue returned to the office at 11:00 I welcomed her with open arms.
Refugees
I had a follow up conversation with ShopMobility (see previous blogs), before hurrying off to the Town Hall for a presentation on Gateway schemes organised by the local Refugee Forum. Apart from the presenter and the host, there were only five people present; a sad reflection on Britain’s once proud boast to provide a safe haven for victims of persecution and oppression – although it may also have resulted from the constant drizzle.
Local authorities can opt to become Gateway authorities, so exempting themselves from receiving asylum seekers dispersed through the country in the usual way. Rachael Thompson from the Refugee Council described how the scheme had operated in Sheffield and Hull, receiving families with full refugee status direct from UN Refugee camps in some of the world’s most troubled regions: Liberians, Congolese, and Karen from Burma.
The scheme has much to commend it and I hope that Watford can take part at some point.
Misunderstanding or discontent?
Back at the office I discovered some dissatisfaction among the staff – arising from new office allocations and possibly some misnderstandings over the definition of “consultation”. After a few hours reflection, I am still not sure if the difficulties arise from a genuine misunderstanding, or if they are a manifestation of deeper darker problems. In any event, it needs to be made clear that our occasional informal staff meetings do not constitute the WCVS's supreme policy-making body. I shall do this when the opportunity arises and see what happens next.
Determined to avoid yesterday’s traffic, I managed this morning to leave home before dawn. It was a wonderfully mild morning and within a few miles, the iron grey light of dawn helped illuminate the way to Watford and I arrived just before 7:30.
I explored further the WBC papers I’ve received on grants and accommodation, and prepared some materials to go on the WCVS website.
At 9:30 I met with Louise, the local manager for our new Connexions contract. She was extremely helpful explaining to me the lore of Connexions and the mysteries of their targets and standards. By the time Louise left, I felt much reassured. I think we will work well together.
My meeting with Louise was regularly interrupted by telephone calls. I knew we were going to be short-staffed today, but the one member of staff I expected called in sick, and then the volunteer who was to help on the reception desk also called in sick. When Sue returned to the office at 11:00 I welcomed her with open arms.
Refugees
I had a follow up conversation with ShopMobility (see previous blogs), before hurrying off to the Town Hall for a presentation on Gateway schemes organised by the local Refugee Forum. Apart from the presenter and the host, there were only five people present; a sad reflection on Britain’s once proud boast to provide a safe haven for victims of persecution and oppression – although it may also have resulted from the constant drizzle.
Local authorities can opt to become Gateway authorities, so exempting themselves from receiving asylum seekers dispersed through the country in the usual way. Rachael Thompson from the Refugee Council described how the scheme had operated in Sheffield and Hull, receiving families with full refugee status direct from UN Refugee camps in some of the world’s most troubled regions: Liberians, Congolese, and Karen from Burma.
The scheme has much to commend it and I hope that Watford can take part at some point.
Misunderstanding or discontent?
Back at the office I discovered some dissatisfaction among the staff – arising from new office allocations and possibly some misnderstandings over the definition of “consultation”. After a few hours reflection, I am still not sure if the difficulties arise from a genuine misunderstanding, or if they are a manifestation of deeper darker problems. In any event, it needs to be made clear that our occasional informal staff meetings do not constitute the WCVS's supreme policy-making body. I shall do this when the opportunity arises and see what happens next.
Monday, 13 November 2006
Monday meetings
I attempted to arrive early for work, but was frustrated by traffic and finally arrived just before 9:00 am. Almost immediately I was straight into a meeting with Sha-Lee, who has joined us for six months to update the Watford Community Directory, and to begin this she first needs to reconcile and standardise several competing sources of information. We spent an hour talking through the project, and Sha-Lee gave every sign of understanding its complexities and subtleties.
After this, I went straight into a meeting with Anne (our funding advisor) and Vanessa (development and training officer) to talk through our funding bid to the Big Lottery’s Reaching Communities fund. We eventually agreed we could show matching funding of approximately £150k against a bid for £300k. But I still need to do some work on our Business Plan before the bid is submitted in early December.
Immediately after this, I met with Bukky Jackson, the new Tenants’ Participation Officer at Watford Borough Council. She is keen to understand what support Tenants Groups will receive should they affiliate to WCVS.
Suddenly it’s lunch time and I’ve not yet had time even to check my e-mail. I quickly trawl through the accumulation of e-mails since I was last in the office on Thursday night. The most important e-mail is from WBC passing over full details of their leases with voluntary groups. This is really helpful. We have undertaken to speak with the various groups and produce a report on the likely consequences of the WBC proposals. This information will benefit WBC, our members and ourselves, but now WBC have provided the information, I have to make sure that the report is produced accurately and promptly. Hopefully, I will be able to complete this by Christmas, but I suspect it will take until then just to collate the information (thirty-six properties are involved).
I’ve also received a mail from Frazer (editor at the Watford Observer) confirming a meeting date, a mail from one of our trustees concerned about the future funding, a mail from Councillor Shirena Counter confirming a meeting date next week, various e-mails from other CVSs asking about IT issues, confirmation that mobile telephones will be delivered this afternoon for our three new Connexions workers (this isn’t profligacy in the charity sector, but a contractual requirement), and 60+ spam mails.
I’ve barely begun responding to these when Anne (funding advisor) and Helen (Volunteer Centre co-ordinator) arrive for a scheduled meeting on future funding of the Volunteer Centre. This continues for sometime, interrupted by my need to take delivery of three mobile telephones, and to have a quick word with Laura our Voluntary Transport scheme co-ordinator. The future of the Volunteering Centre is not a simple matter: Hertfordshire County Council plan to increase volunteering over the coming two years, Watford Borough Council reflect this target in their Local Strategic Plan, Volunteering England seem constantly to nudge up the administrative burden on running a Volunteer Centre, there is an important strategic commitment to engagement with Volunteering Herts, and there is a steady stream of people offering to volunteer. Yet the Volunteer Centre is supported only by a half-time co-ordinator and few funders show the remotest interest in supporting Volunteer Centres. Nevertheless, Anne, Helen and I slowly focus in on the key issues. I call an end to discussions at 4:00 and we schedule a follow up meeting for next week.
I talk with our Services Officer Sue, mostly talking through the needs of our volunteer reception team, and the ongoing programme of internal decorations and relocations that Sue is co-ordinating.
Funding
Then a return to e-mails. Finally we have received the recommendations made to WBC’s cabinet meeting on 20 November for voluntary sector funding over the next three years. I quickly scan the details. Some organisations will receive broadly continued funding, including WCVS (phew!), Age Concern, the Women’s refuge, Herts Young Homeless Project, New Hope Trust, Watford Recycling Arts Project, Watford Philharmonic Society, HomeStart and Relate. CAB and Shop Mobility continue to be funded, but at a lower level. Final decisions have been deferred on Watford Palace Theatre, Watford Women’s Centre, the Watford Indian Association, the Watford African Caribbean Association, the Watford Muslim Project, the West Watford Community Association and the Multi Racial Community Centre. No organisations receives any significant increase in funding, many groups have larger bids rejected, and no new organisations receive funding despite a large number of applications.
These groups have invested hours of time constructing bids to secure their futures for another three years, promoting their activities, struggling to meet deadlines, producing impact reports, and so on. Services and jobs are, literally, dependent on this report to WBC’s cabinet. Although it shouldn’t, reading the cabinet report feels a bit like surveying the bloody aftermath of a battle. In this instance, WCVS’s role is to contact the wounded and offer whatever support we can.
The deferred decisions are perhaps the most interesting. WBC is worried about the possible implications of funding community groups that work with only one section of the community. I gather WBC want evidence that the community groups will work together, and with others, or promote social cohesion. This is all part of the new debate about the future of multi-racial and multi-cultural society.
The other deferred decisions (Watford Palace Theatre and Watford Women’s Centre) are probably related to the extent to which people from outside Watford benefit from this funding, and the extent to which these organisations can raise money from fees. But there may of course be other issues I am unaware of.
Before leaving the office, I have a pleasant and helpful chat with Helen. I left shortly after 7:00 and arrived home at 8:00. After eating, I prepared some work for one of the volunteers to progress on Tuesday afternoon.
Crossword
Before turning in, my partner and I tackled another Daily Telegraph crossword. Lately, there always seems to be one clue that completely confounds us. I invested 20-30 minutes to tackle a crossword because it’s a form of relaxation. It’s a little frustrating to fail to complete a crossword, but I feel ok if my failure arises just from my own stupidity or lack of imagination. But I feel cheated if I discover that the answer to 26-across is xanthemia (what?) or that the clue “Blue gibbon reads the classics” is somehow meant to suggest the answer “Frottage” (why? how?). It’s like watching an hour long episode of Midsummer Murders only to discover that the postmistress did, after all, die of natural causes. Or reading Agatha Christie and finding that the character of the murderer is only introduced in the final few pages. What’s the point? Where’s the satisfaction in that? There ought to be some national quality standards for crossword compilers. Or perhaps compilers who frustrate should be forced to publish an apology, or to carry a government health warning. My wonderful lovely partner Jackie tells me there is a simpler solution. It’s called “Get a life”.
I attempted to arrive early for work, but was frustrated by traffic and finally arrived just before 9:00 am. Almost immediately I was straight into a meeting with Sha-Lee, who has joined us for six months to update the Watford Community Directory, and to begin this she first needs to reconcile and standardise several competing sources of information. We spent an hour talking through the project, and Sha-Lee gave every sign of understanding its complexities and subtleties.
After this, I went straight into a meeting with Anne (our funding advisor) and Vanessa (development and training officer) to talk through our funding bid to the Big Lottery’s Reaching Communities fund. We eventually agreed we could show matching funding of approximately £150k against a bid for £300k. But I still need to do some work on our Business Plan before the bid is submitted in early December.
Immediately after this, I met with Bukky Jackson, the new Tenants’ Participation Officer at Watford Borough Council. She is keen to understand what support Tenants Groups will receive should they affiliate to WCVS.
Suddenly it’s lunch time and I’ve not yet had time even to check my e-mail. I quickly trawl through the accumulation of e-mails since I was last in the office on Thursday night. The most important e-mail is from WBC passing over full details of their leases with voluntary groups. This is really helpful. We have undertaken to speak with the various groups and produce a report on the likely consequences of the WBC proposals. This information will benefit WBC, our members and ourselves, but now WBC have provided the information, I have to make sure that the report is produced accurately and promptly. Hopefully, I will be able to complete this by Christmas, but I suspect it will take until then just to collate the information (thirty-six properties are involved).
I’ve also received a mail from Frazer (editor at the Watford Observer) confirming a meeting date, a mail from one of our trustees concerned about the future funding, a mail from Councillor Shirena Counter confirming a meeting date next week, various e-mails from other CVSs asking about IT issues, confirmation that mobile telephones will be delivered this afternoon for our three new Connexions workers (this isn’t profligacy in the charity sector, but a contractual requirement), and 60+ spam mails.
I’ve barely begun responding to these when Anne (funding advisor) and Helen (Volunteer Centre co-ordinator) arrive for a scheduled meeting on future funding of the Volunteer Centre. This continues for sometime, interrupted by my need to take delivery of three mobile telephones, and to have a quick word with Laura our Voluntary Transport scheme co-ordinator. The future of the Volunteering Centre is not a simple matter: Hertfordshire County Council plan to increase volunteering over the coming two years, Watford Borough Council reflect this target in their Local Strategic Plan, Volunteering England seem constantly to nudge up the administrative burden on running a Volunteer Centre, there is an important strategic commitment to engagement with Volunteering Herts, and there is a steady stream of people offering to volunteer. Yet the Volunteer Centre is supported only by a half-time co-ordinator and few funders show the remotest interest in supporting Volunteer Centres. Nevertheless, Anne, Helen and I slowly focus in on the key issues. I call an end to discussions at 4:00 and we schedule a follow up meeting for next week.
I talk with our Services Officer Sue, mostly talking through the needs of our volunteer reception team, and the ongoing programme of internal decorations and relocations that Sue is co-ordinating.
Funding
Then a return to e-mails. Finally we have received the recommendations made to WBC’s cabinet meeting on 20 November for voluntary sector funding over the next three years. I quickly scan the details. Some organisations will receive broadly continued funding, including WCVS (phew!), Age Concern, the Women’s refuge, Herts Young Homeless Project, New Hope Trust, Watford Recycling Arts Project, Watford Philharmonic Society, HomeStart and Relate. CAB and Shop Mobility continue to be funded, but at a lower level. Final decisions have been deferred on Watford Palace Theatre, Watford Women’s Centre, the Watford Indian Association, the Watford African Caribbean Association, the Watford Muslim Project, the West Watford Community Association and the Multi Racial Community Centre. No organisations receives any significant increase in funding, many groups have larger bids rejected, and no new organisations receive funding despite a large number of applications.
These groups have invested hours of time constructing bids to secure their futures for another three years, promoting their activities, struggling to meet deadlines, producing impact reports, and so on. Services and jobs are, literally, dependent on this report to WBC’s cabinet. Although it shouldn’t, reading the cabinet report feels a bit like surveying the bloody aftermath of a battle. In this instance, WCVS’s role is to contact the wounded and offer whatever support we can.
The deferred decisions are perhaps the most interesting. WBC is worried about the possible implications of funding community groups that work with only one section of the community. I gather WBC want evidence that the community groups will work together, and with others, or promote social cohesion. This is all part of the new debate about the future of multi-racial and multi-cultural society.
The other deferred decisions (Watford Palace Theatre and Watford Women’s Centre) are probably related to the extent to which people from outside Watford benefit from this funding, and the extent to which these organisations can raise money from fees. But there may of course be other issues I am unaware of.
Before leaving the office, I have a pleasant and helpful chat with Helen. I left shortly after 7:00 and arrived home at 8:00. After eating, I prepared some work for one of the volunteers to progress on Tuesday afternoon.
Crossword
Before turning in, my partner and I tackled another Daily Telegraph crossword. Lately, there always seems to be one clue that completely confounds us. I invested 20-30 minutes to tackle a crossword because it’s a form of relaxation. It’s a little frustrating to fail to complete a crossword, but I feel ok if my failure arises just from my own stupidity or lack of imagination. But I feel cheated if I discover that the answer to 26-across is xanthemia (what?) or that the clue “Blue gibbon reads the classics” is somehow meant to suggest the answer “Frottage” (why? how?). It’s like watching an hour long episode of Midsummer Murders only to discover that the postmistress did, after all, die of natural causes. Or reading Agatha Christie and finding that the character of the murderer is only introduced in the final few pages. What’s the point? Where’s the satisfaction in that? There ought to be some national quality standards for crossword compilers. Or perhaps compilers who frustrate should be forced to publish an apology, or to carry a government health warning. My wonderful lovely partner Jackie tells me there is a simpler solution. It’s called “Get a life”.
Sunday, 12 November 2006
Sunday morning
Sunday began at 9:00 am with a call from Bobby, away in Brighton studying Philosophy: “Hi Dad, I’m just writing an essay, can you explain that stuff about the uncertainty principle again?” Although amazed today’s students, especially my own son, seem to think it’s normal to work at 9:00 on a Sunday morning, and despite the early hour, I found that I could indeed produce a tolerably coherent explanation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
I spent the morning in the garden, and in the afternoon hosted Jackie’s parents, then visited Jackie’s brother Steve who was celebrating his 41st birthday, then visited my brother Jez. On the journey home, I was approaching a junction, touched the brake pedal and the car went into a skid, bumping up the kerb and coming to an abrupt halt. There was no serious damage, but the front wheel was slightly bucked. We were close to home so drove on carefully to change the tyre.
When I was younger, my two older brothers were both fanatical about cars. They have raced them across Europe, rallied them in Africa and taken them off-road in Canada; they have fixed them, serviced them and customised them. And the car gene seems to be a common feature in Jones boys: my nephews and male cousins seem equally fascinated. Only myself and my son Bobby seem to have escaped the otherwise virulent Jones car gene.
My knowledge of cars is on a par with the knowledge that might be displayed by Edward the Confessor or Marie Antoinette. My occasional attempts at car maintenance have not been successful. Some have described them as disastrous (I recently filled a diesel van with £80-worth of petrol). So, after spending ten miserable minutes in the dark and the rain trying to work out how to take the wheel off, I knew instinctively what I needed to do. I called Jez. True to his generous nature, he said he would be round in fifteen minutes, and meanwhile I was “not to touch it” (he said this with hardly any note of panic in his voice).
Fifteen minutes later, Jez arrived, thirty seconds later the hub cap was popped off (it was this that had confounded me) and ten minutes later the wheel was changed. At one point, he did ask me to lean against the opposite side of the car, but I think this was just his kind way of helping me to feel useful. Like the rest of the male Joneses, on the subject of cars, Jez regards me with affectionate pity. I resist the urge to tell him that I am really quite clever; that I can explain Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and that I have just finished reading really quite a long book on the Spanish conquest of Peru.
For his trouble, Jez received a large cup of tea and profuse thanks. He didn’t even complain when I said there was no Swarfega in the house. What a nice man he is.
Sunday began at 9:00 am with a call from Bobby, away in Brighton studying Philosophy: “Hi Dad, I’m just writing an essay, can you explain that stuff about the uncertainty principle again?” Although amazed today’s students, especially my own son, seem to think it’s normal to work at 9:00 on a Sunday morning, and despite the early hour, I found that I could indeed produce a tolerably coherent explanation of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
I spent the morning in the garden, and in the afternoon hosted Jackie’s parents, then visited Jackie’s brother Steve who was celebrating his 41st birthday, then visited my brother Jez. On the journey home, I was approaching a junction, touched the brake pedal and the car went into a skid, bumping up the kerb and coming to an abrupt halt. There was no serious damage, but the front wheel was slightly bucked. We were close to home so drove on carefully to change the tyre.
When I was younger, my two older brothers were both fanatical about cars. They have raced them across Europe, rallied them in Africa and taken them off-road in Canada; they have fixed them, serviced them and customised them. And the car gene seems to be a common feature in Jones boys: my nephews and male cousins seem equally fascinated. Only myself and my son Bobby seem to have escaped the otherwise virulent Jones car gene.
My knowledge of cars is on a par with the knowledge that might be displayed by Edward the Confessor or Marie Antoinette. My occasional attempts at car maintenance have not been successful. Some have described them as disastrous (I recently filled a diesel van with £80-worth of petrol). So, after spending ten miserable minutes in the dark and the rain trying to work out how to take the wheel off, I knew instinctively what I needed to do. I called Jez. True to his generous nature, he said he would be round in fifteen minutes, and meanwhile I was “not to touch it” (he said this with hardly any note of panic in his voice).
Fifteen minutes later, Jez arrived, thirty seconds later the hub cap was popped off (it was this that had confounded me) and ten minutes later the wheel was changed. At one point, he did ask me to lean against the opposite side of the car, but I think this was just his kind way of helping me to feel useful. Like the rest of the male Joneses, on the subject of cars, Jez regards me with affectionate pity. I resist the urge to tell him that I am really quite clever; that I can explain Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and that I have just finished reading really quite a long book on the Spanish conquest of Peru.
For his trouble, Jez received a large cup of tea and profuse thanks. He didn’t even complain when I said there was no Swarfega in the house. What a nice man he is.
Saturday, 11 November 2006
The eleventh hours of the eleventh day of the eleventh month
Saturday morning was quiet. Jackie gave Rhiannon a lift to work, and we then took some time gathering ourselves for a Christmas shopping expedition and eventually leaving just after the two minute silence.
Not the most successful trip as far as Christmas shopping is concerned, but we did find a Greek food store in the market (and bought lots of stuffed vine leaves, olives and baklava) and then found a CD of Scottr Walker singing the songs of Jacques Brel. A pleasant evening followed.
Saturday morning was quiet. Jackie gave Rhiannon a lift to work, and we then took some time gathering ourselves for a Christmas shopping expedition and eventually leaving just after the two minute silence.
Not the most successful trip as far as Christmas shopping is concerned, but we did find a Greek food store in the market (and bought lots of stuffed vine leaves, olives and baklava) and then found a CD of Scottr Walker singing the songs of Jacques Brel. A pleasant evening followed.
Friday, 10 November 2006
Friday excursion
I enjoyed a long lie-in until nearly 8:00 am. I left shortly after 9:00 and first went to the Connexions offices in Hertford to hand-deliver our signed contract. I then drove to Hitchin for a meeting. North Herts CVS occupy first-floor offices in the most attractive street in Hitchin: opposite the Kings Head pub, and two minutes walk away from both Moore’s (one of the finest second-hand bookshops in the country) and the Sun Hotel (Folk Club of the year 2005).
The meeting, to discuss county-wide IT issues, is with my counterparts from North Herts CVS and the Broxbourne Voluntary Sector Development Agency. I don’t think anyone could dislike Jacquie from North Herts CVS. She is tall, intelligent, attractive, warm, and eccentric to just the right degree: sufficient to be unusually interesting, but not enough to arouse genuine fear. Ian from BVSDA is also instantly likeable. He has a great work ethic and delivers an astonishing amount on very low resources. If I learnt that one of my counterparts in Hertfordshire had fed 5,000 from with a white sliced load and a few fish fingers, I’d put my money on Ian. Also present was Karen, who works with Ian and is the acknowledged expert on “Volbase”. I’ve only met Karen once or twice before and warmed to her greatly when she announced she had bought her own lunch in the form of Marmalade sandwiches.
Volbase is a contact management system specially designed for infrastructure organisations like CVSs and we are trying to introduce Volbase as a common system for all Herts CVSs. Unfortunately, serious problems are arising over the differing capacities of CVSs to implement the system. Sadly, Watford CVS has so far done nothing to implement the system. It is a good system, but I have spent my first few months at WCVS rebuilding the network and introducing proper shared resources. We already run Microsoft Outlook and V-base for our volunteering centre, and introducing a third contact management system seemed A Bridge Too Far for my over-stretched staff.
It seems to me that I can only justify implementation if Volbase will also feed data into the Herts CVS website, and if we also use it as the foundation for quality assurance systems for recording all contacts we have with our members.
Informed by Karen’s knowledge, Ian and Jacquie and I talked through options and agreed that Volbase would be central to a new IT strategy for all Herts CVSs, but with individual CVSs having options to proceed at different paces. This seemed most satisfactory, but will mean that I now need to introduce a new system to my staff, and reconcile this to our use of V-base and Microsoft Outlook.
Secondly, we looked at the need to develop a common IT infrastructure to share information and services more effectively. Thirdly we looked at options for providing IT support to voluntary groups in the County. Other counties have in place co-ordinated arrangements to provide IT support. For example, Cambridgeshire has a “circuit riders” project of mobile IT workers and Essex is implementing a common web infrastructure so all CVSs and voluntary groups can communicate effectively and share information on line. Hertfordshire is lagging dangerously behind.
But by now, Ian was fast running out of time to collect his car from a car park, and Jacquie and I had to leave for a further meeting.
In the sticks
Jacquie agreed that I should act as chauffer, so I drove us both to a place called Little Chesterton. I believe Little Chesterton is in Cambridgeshire, but it could just as easily be in Hertfordshire. Or Essex. I’ve also a suspicion that it may really be in Suffolk.
Anyway, we went there to meet with representatives from ChangeUp East and SAVO, the Suffolk Association of Voluntary Organisations. Watford CVS, North Herts CVS and SAVO are the chief partners in Trustees Together, a regional project to support charity trustees in the East of England, funded by ChangeUp East.
Apart from Jacquie and me, there were only three others present: Jan from ChangeUp East, and Jonathon and Ionne from SAVO. Apparently I chaired the meeting, but it was hard to tell. We talked through work undertaken in the past year or so, how to collaborate on future work, how to engage other regional partners in the Trustees Together initiative. Pride of place went to two SAVO initiatives: e-learning for trustees and a recent tender to the Governance Hub to develop learning materials for the Chairs of trustee bodies. Although this latter is a Trustees Together partnership initiative, it is really SAVO who have done all the work and developed a very impressive bid branded as In The Hot Seat. The Governance Hub is likely to take a decision in the next few weeks.
Friday Night
After returning Jacquie to Hitchin, I made it home to WGC (Welwyn Garden City) a bit before 6:00 pm. Jackie was already home and we soon opened a Friday night bottle of red wine. Jackie’s son Bryan returned from work with some friends, my son Bobby phoned from Brighton, Jackie’s daughter Rhiannon called from a few streets away, my daughter Nancy called from Essex, and then Jackie’s dad Ed called from the other side of town. Jackie and I talked and chatted and opened a second bottle of wine.
By 8:00, after a cursory attempt at tuning our guitars, we had tried and failed to play several songs from our youth: T Rex, Status Quo, Kirsty MacColl, and Steve Harley. Heaven knows what Bryan and his friends thought of it all. After jamming inconsequentially for a few more minutes, we silently agreed that this probably was not the night we would miraculously compose a masterpiece together. Instead, Jackie produced a marvellous curry. God I love this woman.
After eating, we watched QI on BBC2, and then on BBC4 watched next week’s Children In Need QI special. Toward the end, host Stephen Fry asked: What percentage of your Children In Need donations is spent on administration? and comedian Alan Davies replied None. It’s a complete shambles. How we laughed.
I enjoyed a long lie-in until nearly 8:00 am. I left shortly after 9:00 and first went to the Connexions offices in Hertford to hand-deliver our signed contract. I then drove to Hitchin for a meeting. North Herts CVS occupy first-floor offices in the most attractive street in Hitchin: opposite the Kings Head pub, and two minutes walk away from both Moore’s (one of the finest second-hand bookshops in the country) and the Sun Hotel (Folk Club of the year 2005).
The meeting, to discuss county-wide IT issues, is with my counterparts from North Herts CVS and the Broxbourne Voluntary Sector Development Agency. I don’t think anyone could dislike Jacquie from North Herts CVS. She is tall, intelligent, attractive, warm, and eccentric to just the right degree: sufficient to be unusually interesting, but not enough to arouse genuine fear. Ian from BVSDA is also instantly likeable. He has a great work ethic and delivers an astonishing amount on very low resources. If I learnt that one of my counterparts in Hertfordshire had fed 5,000 from with a white sliced load and a few fish fingers, I’d put my money on Ian. Also present was Karen, who works with Ian and is the acknowledged expert on “Volbase”. I’ve only met Karen once or twice before and warmed to her greatly when she announced she had bought her own lunch in the form of Marmalade sandwiches.
Volbase is a contact management system specially designed for infrastructure organisations like CVSs and we are trying to introduce Volbase as a common system for all Herts CVSs. Unfortunately, serious problems are arising over the differing capacities of CVSs to implement the system. Sadly, Watford CVS has so far done nothing to implement the system. It is a good system, but I have spent my first few months at WCVS rebuilding the network and introducing proper shared resources. We already run Microsoft Outlook and V-base for our volunteering centre, and introducing a third contact management system seemed A Bridge Too Far for my over-stretched staff.
It seems to me that I can only justify implementation if Volbase will also feed data into the Herts CVS website, and if we also use it as the foundation for quality assurance systems for recording all contacts we have with our members.
Informed by Karen’s knowledge, Ian and Jacquie and I talked through options and agreed that Volbase would be central to a new IT strategy for all Herts CVSs, but with individual CVSs having options to proceed at different paces. This seemed most satisfactory, but will mean that I now need to introduce a new system to my staff, and reconcile this to our use of V-base and Microsoft Outlook.
Secondly, we looked at the need to develop a common IT infrastructure to share information and services more effectively. Thirdly we looked at options for providing IT support to voluntary groups in the County. Other counties have in place co-ordinated arrangements to provide IT support. For example, Cambridgeshire has a “circuit riders” project of mobile IT workers and Essex is implementing a common web infrastructure so all CVSs and voluntary groups can communicate effectively and share information on line. Hertfordshire is lagging dangerously behind.
But by now, Ian was fast running out of time to collect his car from a car park, and Jacquie and I had to leave for a further meeting.
In the sticks
Jacquie agreed that I should act as chauffer, so I drove us both to a place called Little Chesterton. I believe Little Chesterton is in Cambridgeshire, but it could just as easily be in Hertfordshire. Or Essex. I’ve also a suspicion that it may really be in Suffolk.
Anyway, we went there to meet with representatives from ChangeUp East and SAVO, the Suffolk Association of Voluntary Organisations. Watford CVS, North Herts CVS and SAVO are the chief partners in Trustees Together, a regional project to support charity trustees in the East of England, funded by ChangeUp East.
Apart from Jacquie and me, there were only three others present: Jan from ChangeUp East, and Jonathon and Ionne from SAVO. Apparently I chaired the meeting, but it was hard to tell. We talked through work undertaken in the past year or so, how to collaborate on future work, how to engage other regional partners in the Trustees Together initiative. Pride of place went to two SAVO initiatives: e-learning for trustees and a recent tender to the Governance Hub to develop learning materials for the Chairs of trustee bodies. Although this latter is a Trustees Together partnership initiative, it is really SAVO who have done all the work and developed a very impressive bid branded as In The Hot Seat. The Governance Hub is likely to take a decision in the next few weeks.
Friday Night
After returning Jacquie to Hitchin, I made it home to WGC (Welwyn Garden City) a bit before 6:00 pm. Jackie was already home and we soon opened a Friday night bottle of red wine. Jackie’s son Bryan returned from work with some friends, my son Bobby phoned from Brighton, Jackie’s daughter Rhiannon called from a few streets away, my daughter Nancy called from Essex, and then Jackie’s dad Ed called from the other side of town. Jackie and I talked and chatted and opened a second bottle of wine.
By 8:00, after a cursory attempt at tuning our guitars, we had tried and failed to play several songs from our youth: T Rex, Status Quo, Kirsty MacColl, and Steve Harley. Heaven knows what Bryan and his friends thought of it all. After jamming inconsequentially for a few more minutes, we silently agreed that this probably was not the night we would miraculously compose a masterpiece together. Instead, Jackie produced a marvellous curry. God I love this woman.
After eating, we watched QI on BBC2, and then on BBC4 watched next week’s Children In Need QI special. Toward the end, host Stephen Fry asked: What percentage of your Children In Need donations is spent on administration? and comedian Alan Davies replied None. It’s a complete shambles. How we laughed.
Thursday, 9 November 2006
Another early start
There’s a lot to do following last night’s trustees meeting. I am out of the office all day tomorrow (Friday), and I am so looking forward to a relaxing weekend free from worry about outstanding work. So, despite arriving home at nearly 10:00 pm last night, I arrived for work at 7:30 am this morning. I’m not looking for Brownie points (what would I do them?), but I am determined to have a relaxing weekend.
Local services for local people
I had a welcome call from Jim, Chair of Watford Shop Mobility. He explained the funding issues ShopMo faces, particularly related to their funding, from Watford Borough Council (WBC). Like many charities, Watford ShopMo has seen its support from the local authority gradually fall as despite rising costs, they have received no grant increase for four years. Now they are facing an actual reduction in funding.
It would be unfair to go into specific details but the general issues are common to many groups in Watford and elsewhere: past lack of clarity about exactly what ShopMo is funded to deliver, questions over how activities should be measured, no existing agreement on how community benefits is assessed, and so on and so forth. One recurring issue is whether WBC should fund services that are accessed by people from outside the borough. This is a particularly thorny issue in Watford, which draws in many shoppers and workers from neighbouring local authorities that simply do not live up to their responsibilities toward their local voluntary sectors.
But it must cut both ways: The local major shopping centre, Harlequin, provides ShopMo with free premises because they recognise that the scheme attracts into Watford people who would otherwise shop elsewhere. Indeed Jim himself lives outside the borough yet freely devotes a vast amount of his time to providing services within Watford.
Meanwhile, ShopMo is in the difficult position familiar to voluntary organisations since time immemorial: do you organise a campaign to protect your funding and so alienate the authority whose support you most need?
We ourselves have a WBC six-monthly monitoring visit in early December. In the summer, just as I took up my post, WBC did undertake to treat CVS’s grant outside the main funding programme, and then involve us more in their general grant programme. I thought that this would mean early agreement on CVS’s grant, discussions on general funding criteria, the sharing of information, the development of agreed terms and conditions, and joint monitoring arrangements. But no. CVS seems to be in the same boat as its member organisations, and we know no more about the overall picture than any other group does. We are reliant on our members keeping us informed, and of course few have the time as they are locked in intense discussions with their funders.
WBC are taking their decisions at their cabinet meeting on 20 November, and they have promised that we will receive a copy of the full detailed proposals five days before the meeting, when the cabinet papers are anyway released to the general public.
Jim was not asking for CVS intervention, and nor did he have a specific question; he’s smart enough to know there are no easy answers. I think he just wanted to talk through the issues with a sympathetic outsider. I hope to learn much more about local experiences at our Voluntary Sector Alliance meeting on 22 November.
I spent most of the remainder of the day following up yesterday’s trustees meeting. Most of this work related to a new contract we have with Connexions to provide Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) to 13-19 year-olds from minority ethnic groups. This project was delivered by another charity that is now closing, and the contract is passing to WCVS – at least for the time being. I signed the contract approved by the trustees, met with the existing worker who is transferring to WCVS (lots of TUPE legal issues), sent a “confirmation of appointment” letter to a lady in Luton, spoke to another potential employee for who we are awaiting CRB clearance, chased up Herts County Council for the CRB clearance, spoke to CVS staff about accommodating the new workers, arranged a meeting with the Connexions contract manager, began organising telephones and computers for the project staff, and made some changes to the network to accommodate new work groups.
Partnerships
I also spent some time reviewing our bid to the Big Lottery’s Reaching Communities fund. WCVS is leading this bid, but it is a partnership bid between ourselves, the YMCA, and Watford Learning Partnership. The aim of the project is to deliver a range of informal community-based education over five years including: training for voluntary groups, training for voluntary groups taking over the management of local authority community centres, short informal courses for “hard to reach” groups, and courses targeted at young people not in education, employment or training. The bid has passed the first stage of scrutiny and now we are reaching the deadline for submitting our second stage bid.
Outsiders may perhaps not appreciate that one of the great strengths of the voluntary sector is its ability to accommodate a large number of flexible partnerships. This programme could really help consolidate relationships between local voluntary and statutory agencies, and fits perfectly alongside our new Connexions contract. Co-ordinating five-year budgets between three major partners is always a bit tricky, but was managed with help from our fundraising advisor Anne, and from Roger of the YMCA.
Untypically, I managed to leave the office about 6:30 pm, leaving our Volunteer Centre organiser Helen still working hard preparing for a volunteering workshop she is holding on Friday.
Reading and puzzles
At home I finally finish reading The Conquest of Peru, a long and comprehensive study of the last days of the Inca empire and its conquest by Spanish adventurers. The book was written by William Prescott, and was originally published in 1847. Having finally arrived at p602, I thought I still had another 40-odd pages to go, but discovered that the last 40 pages were appendices all presented in the original Spanish. I excused myself the task of attempting these. I soon lost count of the number of revolutions and counter-revolutions that the early Spanish settlers inflicted on each other and on the indigenous population. Strangely, what sticks in my mind most is the short biography of William Prescott in the introduction. He appears never to have visited Peru. He was an American, and was bound for a career in law until he was blinded while at Harvard, by someone throwing a bread roll that struck him in the eye. I wonder if this is the incident that is held in the collective memory of so many teachers and parents and Health and Safety advisors and which has spoiled so many a food fight.
Before turning in, Jackie and I tackled another Daily Telegraph crossword. Lately, there always seems to be one clue that completely confounds us. I invested 20-30 minutes to tackle a crossword because it’s a form of relaxation. It’s a little frustrating to fail to complete a crossword, but I feel ok if my failure arises just from my own stupidity or lack of imagination. But I feel cheated if I discover that the answer to 26-across is xanthemia (what?) or that the clue “Blue elephant reads the classics” is somehow meant to suggest the answer night watchman (why? how?). It’s like watching an hour long episode of Midsummer Murders only to discover that the postmistress did, after all, die of natural causes. Or reading Agatha Christie and finding that the character of the murderer is only introduced in the final few pages. What’s the point? Where’s the satisfaction in that? There ought to be some national quality standards for crossword compilers. Or perhaps compilers who frustrate should be forced to publish an apology, or to carry a government health warning. My wonderful lovely partner Jackie tells me there is a simple solution. It’s called “Get a life”.
There’s a lot to do following last night’s trustees meeting. I am out of the office all day tomorrow (Friday), and I am so looking forward to a relaxing weekend free from worry about outstanding work. So, despite arriving home at nearly 10:00 pm last night, I arrived for work at 7:30 am this morning. I’m not looking for Brownie points (what would I do them?), but I am determined to have a relaxing weekend.
Local services for local people
I had a welcome call from Jim, Chair of Watford Shop Mobility. He explained the funding issues ShopMo faces, particularly related to their funding, from Watford Borough Council (WBC). Like many charities, Watford ShopMo has seen its support from the local authority gradually fall as despite rising costs, they have received no grant increase for four years. Now they are facing an actual reduction in funding.
It would be unfair to go into specific details but the general issues are common to many groups in Watford and elsewhere: past lack of clarity about exactly what ShopMo is funded to deliver, questions over how activities should be measured, no existing agreement on how community benefits is assessed, and so on and so forth. One recurring issue is whether WBC should fund services that are accessed by people from outside the borough. This is a particularly thorny issue in Watford, which draws in many shoppers and workers from neighbouring local authorities that simply do not live up to their responsibilities toward their local voluntary sectors.
But it must cut both ways: The local major shopping centre, Harlequin, provides ShopMo with free premises because they recognise that the scheme attracts into Watford people who would otherwise shop elsewhere. Indeed Jim himself lives outside the borough yet freely devotes a vast amount of his time to providing services within Watford.
Meanwhile, ShopMo is in the difficult position familiar to voluntary organisations since time immemorial: do you organise a campaign to protect your funding and so alienate the authority whose support you most need?
We ourselves have a WBC six-monthly monitoring visit in early December. In the summer, just as I took up my post, WBC did undertake to treat CVS’s grant outside the main funding programme, and then involve us more in their general grant programme. I thought that this would mean early agreement on CVS’s grant, discussions on general funding criteria, the sharing of information, the development of agreed terms and conditions, and joint monitoring arrangements. But no. CVS seems to be in the same boat as its member organisations, and we know no more about the overall picture than any other group does. We are reliant on our members keeping us informed, and of course few have the time as they are locked in intense discussions with their funders.
WBC are taking their decisions at their cabinet meeting on 20 November, and they have promised that we will receive a copy of the full detailed proposals five days before the meeting, when the cabinet papers are anyway released to the general public.
Jim was not asking for CVS intervention, and nor did he have a specific question; he’s smart enough to know there are no easy answers. I think he just wanted to talk through the issues with a sympathetic outsider. I hope to learn much more about local experiences at our Voluntary Sector Alliance meeting on 22 November.
I spent most of the remainder of the day following up yesterday’s trustees meeting. Most of this work related to a new contract we have with Connexions to provide Information Advice and Guidance (IAG) to 13-19 year-olds from minority ethnic groups. This project was delivered by another charity that is now closing, and the contract is passing to WCVS – at least for the time being. I signed the contract approved by the trustees, met with the existing worker who is transferring to WCVS (lots of TUPE legal issues), sent a “confirmation of appointment” letter to a lady in Luton, spoke to another potential employee for who we are awaiting CRB clearance, chased up Herts County Council for the CRB clearance, spoke to CVS staff about accommodating the new workers, arranged a meeting with the Connexions contract manager, began organising telephones and computers for the project staff, and made some changes to the network to accommodate new work groups.
Partnerships
I also spent some time reviewing our bid to the Big Lottery’s Reaching Communities fund. WCVS is leading this bid, but it is a partnership bid between ourselves, the YMCA, and Watford Learning Partnership. The aim of the project is to deliver a range of informal community-based education over five years including: training for voluntary groups, training for voluntary groups taking over the management of local authority community centres, short informal courses for “hard to reach” groups, and courses targeted at young people not in education, employment or training. The bid has passed the first stage of scrutiny and now we are reaching the deadline for submitting our second stage bid.
Outsiders may perhaps not appreciate that one of the great strengths of the voluntary sector is its ability to accommodate a large number of flexible partnerships. This programme could really help consolidate relationships between local voluntary and statutory agencies, and fits perfectly alongside our new Connexions contract. Co-ordinating five-year budgets between three major partners is always a bit tricky, but was managed with help from our fundraising advisor Anne, and from Roger of the YMCA.
Untypically, I managed to leave the office about 6:30 pm, leaving our Volunteer Centre organiser Helen still working hard preparing for a volunteering workshop she is holding on Friday.
Reading and puzzles
At home I finally finish reading The Conquest of Peru, a long and comprehensive study of the last days of the Inca empire and its conquest by Spanish adventurers. The book was written by William Prescott, and was originally published in 1847. Having finally arrived at p602, I thought I still had another 40-odd pages to go, but discovered that the last 40 pages were appendices all presented in the original Spanish. I excused myself the task of attempting these. I soon lost count of the number of revolutions and counter-revolutions that the early Spanish settlers inflicted on each other and on the indigenous population. Strangely, what sticks in my mind most is the short biography of William Prescott in the introduction. He appears never to have visited Peru. He was an American, and was bound for a career in law until he was blinded while at Harvard, by someone throwing a bread roll that struck him in the eye. I wonder if this is the incident that is held in the collective memory of so many teachers and parents and Health and Safety advisors and which has spoiled so many a food fight.
Before turning in, Jackie and I tackled another Daily Telegraph crossword. Lately, there always seems to be one clue that completely confounds us. I invested 20-30 minutes to tackle a crossword because it’s a form of relaxation. It’s a little frustrating to fail to complete a crossword, but I feel ok if my failure arises just from my own stupidity or lack of imagination. But I feel cheated if I discover that the answer to 26-across is xanthemia (what?) or that the clue “Blue elephant reads the classics” is somehow meant to suggest the answer night watchman (why? how?). It’s like watching an hour long episode of Midsummer Murders only to discover that the postmistress did, after all, die of natural causes. Or reading Agatha Christie and finding that the character of the murderer is only introduced in the final few pages. What’s the point? Where’s the satisfaction in that? There ought to be some national quality standards for crossword compilers. Or perhaps compilers who frustrate should be forced to publish an apology, or to carry a government health warning. My wonderful lovely partner Jackie tells me there is a simple solution. It’s called “Get a life”.
Wednesday, 8 November 2006
On reflection, it probably wasn’t a good idea to introduce an elderly cat to a new cat-flap over the weekend of 5 November. But Aged Ken does seem now to have mastered the thing, and no longer needs a doorman and chaperone when visiting the garden.
I arrived home last night to a lovely meal, tackled the Daily Telegraph crossword together with my partner and then we had an early night. Is there a more civilized way to spend an evening?
I spent this morning’s drive to work listening to Sarah Kennedy on Radio 2, and then put on a CD of the North’s own Noel Coward, Jake Thackray: The Castleford Ladies Magic Circle, Brother Gorilla, and my own favourite Caroline Diggeby-Pratte (“someone will love you hopelessly, but it wont be me”).
Today’s Big Question
I arrived for work bright and early, and pleased to see that our fundraising advisor, Anne B was also making an early start. This meant that by 8:00 I had already enjoyed my first cup of tea and spoken with Anne about our application to the Big Lottery’s BASIS fund.
This is the Big Lottery’s dedicated fund for charity infrastructure organisations (charities that provide services to other charities). Nearly every CVS in the country has put forward bids, and of course the fund has been massively oversubscribed and the Big Lottery have twice pushed back their decision data.
In brief, Watford CVS is bidding for a Training Officer to co-ordinate voluntary sector training, and for a part-time accounts advisor to help local groups with their bookkeeping. If we aren’t awarded a grant, it will be a set-back but not a disaster. Some CVSs not properly supported by their local councils are relying on BASIS funding for their survival.
From Hertfordshire, there are ten - twelve bids to BASIS, and each bid will take a week or more to draw up. The future of two to four of these organisations is heavily dependent on securing BASIS funding. The likely outcome is that only one or two bids from the county will receive funding.
And there’s the rub: should BASIS focus support on the CVSs whose survival is threatened, and effectively reward those local authorities who fail to support local voluntarism? Or should they focus support on other CVSs, thereby (perhaps) speeding the closure of infrastructure organisations most in need of support?
This seems to me the Big Question to be examined. But I suspect that the Big Lottery are barely aware of the issue, and are certainly not in a position to spend time exploring it.
Meanwhile, we are refining our outcomes by making them SMART (“Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Related”) and keeping our fingers crossed for ourselves and others.
That Pesky Bill
From our Grants Manager at WBC, the wonderful Kim, I receive advice that we can safely ignore yesterday’s energy bill for £15,722. This covers several years’ power supply for the whole building and is being paid by WBC. Phew!
Other work
I also spent some time this morning reviewing the Watford CVS website. It was probably pretty much state-of-the-art when it was produced, but is now looking a little old fashioned, some key functionality is missing and updating is a bit of a chore. I must have a word with the developers to see what options we have for development.
Then had a long chat with our network support chap about our future IT needs.
Poppies and Wogan
I’m wearing a poppy today ahead of Remembrance Sunday. Remembrance Sunday was once the only day of the year that was nationally recognised as belonging to a particular charity or good cause.
Now the calendar as liberally sprinkled with charity events: Jeans for Genes, Make a Difference Day, Red Nose Day, No Smoking Day, Breast Cancer Awareness Day, World AIDS Day, and so on.
On 17 November, Children in Need will have their special day of fundraising, led by “veteran broadcaster” Terry Wogan and Pudsey Bear. I’m particularly fond of Children in Need because it’s an event that not only raises money for a “good cause” but also gets children involved. It is important, I think, to introduce children to the idea that it is right and proper to devote some time to raising money for those “less fortunate”. Oh dear; I think I might be being pompous and patronising.
Trustees meeting
Tonight was only my second trustees meeting since joining WCVS. In the voluntary sector, people do not take on the role of Company Director for their own private pecuniary benefit; but because they believe in the work of the charity.
I must say I am blessed with a most intelligent, effective and dedicated group of trustees: they are aware of their responsibilities and have excellent knowledge of the local voluntary sector. Most importantly they seem effortlessly to strike a near perfect balance between supporting and challenging their Chief Executive.
The meeting was very went very smoothly: business-like without being fastidious and informal without being loose. Reports were received and decisions taken.
In the News
In America, the Democrats have won control of the House of Representatives. In the Senate, Vermont elected a candidate standing as an independent Socialist, and Minnesota elected the first Muslim Congressman.
I was also struck by news from the World Bank. They say that of the top twenty nations (in terms of GDP) Britain now has the second most complex tax regime after India. Since Gordon Brown became Chancellor tax regulations have increased to fill 8,300 pages, compared with only 1,300 in France and 1,700 in Germany. Did I hear someone say “de-regulation”?
I was disappointed that Watford lost last night to Newcastle. I was more pleased to see that Southend United beat Manchester United: it’s good to see the underdog win occasionally; although I wont be so pleased tonight if underdogs Port Vale beat Tottenham.
I arrived home last night to a lovely meal, tackled the Daily Telegraph crossword together with my partner and then we had an early night. Is there a more civilized way to spend an evening?
I spent this morning’s drive to work listening to Sarah Kennedy on Radio 2, and then put on a CD of the North’s own Noel Coward, Jake Thackray: The Castleford Ladies Magic Circle, Brother Gorilla, and my own favourite Caroline Diggeby-Pratte (“someone will love you hopelessly, but it wont be me”).
Today’s Big Question
I arrived for work bright and early, and pleased to see that our fundraising advisor, Anne B was also making an early start. This meant that by 8:00 I had already enjoyed my first cup of tea and spoken with Anne about our application to the Big Lottery’s BASIS fund.
This is the Big Lottery’s dedicated fund for charity infrastructure organisations (charities that provide services to other charities). Nearly every CVS in the country has put forward bids, and of course the fund has been massively oversubscribed and the Big Lottery have twice pushed back their decision data.
In brief, Watford CVS is bidding for a Training Officer to co-ordinate voluntary sector training, and for a part-time accounts advisor to help local groups with their bookkeeping. If we aren’t awarded a grant, it will be a set-back but not a disaster. Some CVSs not properly supported by their local councils are relying on BASIS funding for their survival.
From Hertfordshire, there are ten - twelve bids to BASIS, and each bid will take a week or more to draw up. The future of two to four of these organisations is heavily dependent on securing BASIS funding. The likely outcome is that only one or two bids from the county will receive funding.
And there’s the rub: should BASIS focus support on the CVSs whose survival is threatened, and effectively reward those local authorities who fail to support local voluntarism? Or should they focus support on other CVSs, thereby (perhaps) speeding the closure of infrastructure organisations most in need of support?
This seems to me the Big Question to be examined. But I suspect that the Big Lottery are barely aware of the issue, and are certainly not in a position to spend time exploring it.
Meanwhile, we are refining our outcomes by making them SMART (“Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time Related”) and keeping our fingers crossed for ourselves and others.
That Pesky Bill
From our Grants Manager at WBC, the wonderful Kim, I receive advice that we can safely ignore yesterday’s energy bill for £15,722. This covers several years’ power supply for the whole building and is being paid by WBC. Phew!
Other work
I also spent some time this morning reviewing the Watford CVS website. It was probably pretty much state-of-the-art when it was produced, but is now looking a little old fashioned, some key functionality is missing and updating is a bit of a chore. I must have a word with the developers to see what options we have for development.
Then had a long chat with our network support chap about our future IT needs.
Poppies and Wogan
I’m wearing a poppy today ahead of Remembrance Sunday. Remembrance Sunday was once the only day of the year that was nationally recognised as belonging to a particular charity or good cause.
Now the calendar as liberally sprinkled with charity events: Jeans for Genes, Make a Difference Day, Red Nose Day, No Smoking Day, Breast Cancer Awareness Day, World AIDS Day, and so on.
On 17 November, Children in Need will have their special day of fundraising, led by “veteran broadcaster” Terry Wogan and Pudsey Bear. I’m particularly fond of Children in Need because it’s an event that not only raises money for a “good cause” but also gets children involved. It is important, I think, to introduce children to the idea that it is right and proper to devote some time to raising money for those “less fortunate”. Oh dear; I think I might be being pompous and patronising.
Trustees meeting
Tonight was only my second trustees meeting since joining WCVS. In the voluntary sector, people do not take on the role of Company Director for their own private pecuniary benefit; but because they believe in the work of the charity.
I must say I am blessed with a most intelligent, effective and dedicated group of trustees: they are aware of their responsibilities and have excellent knowledge of the local voluntary sector. Most importantly they seem effortlessly to strike a near perfect balance between supporting and challenging their Chief Executive.
The meeting was very went very smoothly: business-like without being fastidious and informal without being loose. Reports were received and decisions taken.
In the News
In America, the Democrats have won control of the House of Representatives. In the Senate, Vermont elected a candidate standing as an independent Socialist, and Minnesota elected the first Muslim Congressman.
I was also struck by news from the World Bank. They say that of the top twenty nations (in terms of GDP) Britain now has the second most complex tax regime after India. Since Gordon Brown became Chancellor tax regulations have increased to fill 8,300 pages, compared with only 1,300 in France and 1,700 in Germany. Did I hear someone say “de-regulation”?
I was disappointed that Watford lost last night to Newcastle. I was more pleased to see that Southend United beat Manchester United: it’s good to see the underdog win occasionally; although I wont be so pleased tonight if underdogs Port Vale beat Tottenham.
Tuesday, 7 November 2006
Introduction
This is my first attempt at blogging. It's an experiment in accountability (keeping a rough note of my day-to-day activities), the promotion of Watford CVS (so our members can see what we get up to on their behalf). I've also a vague expectation that it might help me keep some perspective on things.
Of course I've no idea how things will actually work out.
At one point I thought the Worst Case Scenario was that no-one will ever become aware of this blog, and I'd simply have wasted a few hours. But I now realise that an Even Worse Case Scenario is that the blog might expose the humdrum mundanity and pointlessness of it all.
But these are the risks we run. And I like to think I have a positive and cheery disposition, so here we go ...
This morning's traffic
Traffic wasn't too bad this morning and I arrived a bit before 8:00 AM. Stop me if this is too much detail.
After deleting the usual 30-odd e-mail offering me Viagra and sure-fire investments, I spent the early part of the morning preparing papers to table at my trustees meeting tomorrow night, and preparing for a meeting on Friday to look at the IT needs of voluntary organisations in Watford and Hertfordshire as a whole.
I also found on my desk an electricity bill for £15,722.07. Fortunately, this invoice isn't made out to Watford CVS. But it is addressed another voluntary organisation that we used to share offices with until very recently, and with which we share an electricity supply. I make several telephone calls to find out what is going on, but the most I can discover is that there seems to have been some confusion. Watch this space.
One Watford
In the afternoon, I attended a meeting of the One Watford group - the group chaired by our Mayor that oversees Watford's Local Strategic Plan. We heard about plans for "No Smoking Watford", and about the new Watford Children's Trust. We also looked at plans for future meetings including in February 2007 a focus on voluntarism.
Within Hertfordshire, Local Strategic Plans from each of the ten boroughs and districts are meant to co-ordinate with the county-wide Local Area Agreement. The Big Problem at present seems to be the absence of a clear steer from Herts County Council. There are lots of County-wide targets, including "stretch" targets for which central government promises financial rewards. But what do these targets mean for individual districts and boroughs within the County?
An example will help ...
County-wide, there is a target that by 2009, 17% of adults will do voluntary work for two or more hours a week. At present the County-wide figure is just 14%. Simple? But the baseline figure of 14% was established by a public survey which produced a baseline figure for Watford of just 6%. But the survey was designed to produce a reliable figure for Hertfordshire as a whole. What statistical reliance can be placed on a sample survey of just 100 people in Watford?
On other measures, Watford fared rather better. 85% of Watfordians think Watford is a place where "people from different backgrounds get on well together". The County-wide baseline is just 74%, and the target for 2009 is just 76%. So on this, Watford is already well ahead of the game.
Clearly someone, somewhere needs to be co-ordinating things. But who?
A stiff letter coming on
Back in the office, I revisited my e-mail in-box to discover that the latest edition of the Third Sector magazine carries an article headed ""Hertfordshire reveals itself to be the least Compact-friendly county in the country". Those unfamiliar with voluntary sector jargon need to understand that this does not mean that Hertfordshire people have some innate aversion to anything squashy or dense. In this context, "compacts" are the agreements between voluntary sector organisations and statutory authorities. As joint chair of the Hertfordshire Compact Group, I was naturally unsettled by the article. The Funding and Partnership Manager at Herts County Council said he was "aghast", as well he might be after hte work he has done to strengthen the Hertfordshire Compact.
On reading the article, it transpires that 360 local authorities have published Compacts, 22 local authorities have plans to publish their Compacts, and only 6 local authorities have no plans at present. The article names the six offenders as Brentwood in Essex, Allerdale in Cumbria, the City of London, the Scilly Isles, and Three Rivers and Welwyn Hatfield, both in Hertfordshire.
Yet we know that work is progressing in these districts, and that in the County as a whole the Compact is well supported. I feel a stiff letter coming on.
Trustees
I took one last look through the papers for my trustees meeting tomorrow night. So much is going on that several papers have to be tabled. This isn't ideal of course, but in this instance it really can't be avoided.
And so to bed
It is now nearly half past six, and I am off home to another wonderful evening of domestic bliss. Seriously. I just hope that our aged cat Ken has now learnt to use the new cat-flap.
This is my first attempt at blogging. It's an experiment in accountability (keeping a rough note of my day-to-day activities), the promotion of Watford CVS (so our members can see what we get up to on their behalf). I've also a vague expectation that it might help me keep some perspective on things.
Of course I've no idea how things will actually work out.
At one point I thought the Worst Case Scenario was that no-one will ever become aware of this blog, and I'd simply have wasted a few hours. But I now realise that an Even Worse Case Scenario is that the blog might expose the humdrum mundanity and pointlessness of it all.
But these are the risks we run. And I like to think I have a positive and cheery disposition, so here we go ...
This morning's traffic
Traffic wasn't too bad this morning and I arrived a bit before 8:00 AM. Stop me if this is too much detail.
After deleting the usual 30-odd e-mail offering me Viagra and sure-fire investments, I spent the early part of the morning preparing papers to table at my trustees meeting tomorrow night, and preparing for a meeting on Friday to look at the IT needs of voluntary organisations in Watford and Hertfordshire as a whole.
I also found on my desk an electricity bill for £15,722.07. Fortunately, this invoice isn't made out to Watford CVS. But it is addressed another voluntary organisation that we used to share offices with until very recently, and with which we share an electricity supply. I make several telephone calls to find out what is going on, but the most I can discover is that there seems to have been some confusion. Watch this space.
One Watford
In the afternoon, I attended a meeting of the One Watford group - the group chaired by our Mayor that oversees Watford's Local Strategic Plan. We heard about plans for "No Smoking Watford", and about the new Watford Children's Trust. We also looked at plans for future meetings including in February 2007 a focus on voluntarism.
Within Hertfordshire, Local Strategic Plans from each of the ten boroughs and districts are meant to co-ordinate with the county-wide Local Area Agreement. The Big Problem at present seems to be the absence of a clear steer from Herts County Council. There are lots of County-wide targets, including "stretch" targets for which central government promises financial rewards. But what do these targets mean for individual districts and boroughs within the County?
An example will help ...
County-wide, there is a target that by 2009, 17% of adults will do voluntary work for two or more hours a week. At present the County-wide figure is just 14%. Simple? But the baseline figure of 14% was established by a public survey which produced a baseline figure for Watford of just 6%. But the survey was designed to produce a reliable figure for Hertfordshire as a whole. What statistical reliance can be placed on a sample survey of just 100 people in Watford?
On other measures, Watford fared rather better. 85% of Watfordians think Watford is a place where "people from different backgrounds get on well together". The County-wide baseline is just 74%, and the target for 2009 is just 76%. So on this, Watford is already well ahead of the game.
Clearly someone, somewhere needs to be co-ordinating things. But who?
A stiff letter coming on
Back in the office, I revisited my e-mail in-box to discover that the latest edition of the Third Sector magazine carries an article headed ""Hertfordshire reveals itself to be the least Compact-friendly county in the country". Those unfamiliar with voluntary sector jargon need to understand that this does not mean that Hertfordshire people have some innate aversion to anything squashy or dense. In this context, "compacts" are the agreements between voluntary sector organisations and statutory authorities. As joint chair of the Hertfordshire Compact Group, I was naturally unsettled by the article. The Funding and Partnership Manager at Herts County Council said he was "aghast", as well he might be after hte work he has done to strengthen the Hertfordshire Compact.
On reading the article, it transpires that 360 local authorities have published Compacts, 22 local authorities have plans to publish their Compacts, and only 6 local authorities have no plans at present. The article names the six offenders as Brentwood in Essex, Allerdale in Cumbria, the City of London, the Scilly Isles, and Three Rivers and Welwyn Hatfield, both in Hertfordshire.
Yet we know that work is progressing in these districts, and that in the County as a whole the Compact is well supported. I feel a stiff letter coming on.
Trustees
I took one last look through the papers for my trustees meeting tomorrow night. So much is going on that several papers have to be tabled. This isn't ideal of course, but in this instance it really can't be avoided.
And so to bed
It is now nearly half past six, and I am off home to another wonderful evening of domestic bliss. Seriously. I just hope that our aged cat Ken has now learnt to use the new cat-flap.
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