Friday, 1 December 2006

The first day of December, Friday began with suitably grim weather and another early start to complete a few hours of work on the budget and business plan to accompany our Reaching Communities bid to the lottery. The deadline for submission of our second stage application is now only a week away and looming large.

Watford Learning Partnership

At 10:00 am I was at the Cassio campus of West Herts College for a meeting of the WLP, the Watford Learning Partnership. This is a loose and ill-resourced grouping of disparate statutory and voluntary agencies attempting to co-ordinate their training and education activities into a coherent strategy. The meeting was chaired by Alison Stainsby, Head of Leisure and Community Services at WBC. At one point, as chair of the WLP, she had to explain why WBC had rejected the WLP’s grant application. My heart went out to her. She did a sterling job.

I had to leave the meeting sharp at 12:00 to return to the office. The traffic was crazy (Xmas shoppers?) and in teeming rain I completed the 2 mile journey just in time for my 12:30 meeting with Frazer, deputy editor of the Watford Observer. Our volunteer Maria joined us and we had a very good talk – Frazer helping us understand how best to get coverage in his paper for the local voluntary sector. It will also help Frazer access stories and make contacts, of course, so we can both be winners.

Investors in People

At 2:00 the entire staff team met with Len, the mentor allocated to WCVS for our Investors In People programme, for an initial IIP awareness-raising session. WCVS accessed this free programme of support for IIP accreditation through the East of England voluntary sector co-ordinating body COVER-East. Len explained the process to everyone and there was a high level of commitment, but there are several big issues to resolve (as with every organisation) and there is a very short timetable (six months to get IiP accreditation before the funding runs out).

I was pleased to leave the office at about 6:00 and head straight off to my baby-sitting.