Thursday, 8 March 2007

First thing this morning, Sue and I met with our auditors. Gary and Cameron sorted out a few ongoing niggly little problems we’ve had with our Quick Books package and we agreed a timetable for this year’s audit.

Watford Credit Union moved in as our new neighbours over last weekend. We both hoped and expected that the legal paperwork would soon catch up and there would be a proper lease between WCU and WBC. Now it appears that the lease will be at least eight weeks in coming, and meanwhile WBC have told the Credit Union they need to move out again. Ouch. I do hope a practical solution can be found.

Most of the affternoon, I spent talking with Helen, our Volunteer Centre Organiser. Helen has won a prestigious bursary to join the Volunteering England Management Development Programme for Volunteer Centre Managers. We needed to talk through this, and to plan how we can provide a clear strategic lead on local volunteering. Our little Volunteer Centre has already made presentations to the Local Strategic Partnership, we have increased the coverage given to volunteering by the local Watford Free newspaper, and we have a place on the county-wide Delivery Group. But we also need to prepare a presentation to local charities, and to follow up our presentation to the LSP.

Later, I spoke with Andrew Burt at County Hall about funding for HomeStart in Hertfordshire. Hertfordshire County Council has “re-aligned” funding, and this means that funds are transferred away from Watford to other areas of Hertfordshire. From what I have seen, the change does not seem to have been handled very well. Hopefully it is not too late for a solution to be found.

Later still, I ploughed through a number of outstanding e-mails and made arrangements for some forthcoming meetings.

But I need to find time now for the bigger jobs: finalising our SLA with WBC, our 2007-08 budget, and an interrim report on Value and Volumes.