Monday, 26 November 2007

I spent a morning at home working on an accommodation strategy for Watford’s voluntary sector. I am having trouble separating this from the Community Development Strategy on which I have also started work: are they one strategy or two?

In the afternoon, I travelled to Hertford to meet with Andrew Burt of HCC and Jacquie Hime of N Herts CVS to discuss the future of the Herts Compact Group. Jacquie and I are joint chairs of the Working Group which has a meeting scheduled for mid-December. I have been worried for some time that nationally the whole Compact agenda is drifting aimless towards the rocks. Jacquie, Andrew and I met to try and agree a way forward in Hertfordshire.

Andrew argued that Compact should be re-aligned to the LSPs and to the new LAA2 agenda - and particularly to the new targets for local authorities: a thriving Third Sector, more volunteering, community engagement and so on. Jacquie took to the idea almost immediately. My brain works a little more slowly and had to clunk through several “what if” scenarios before I finally accepted that Andrew’s proposal was indeed the best way forward.

Having convinced us both of the wisdom of his vision for Compact, Andrew then told us that he might not be at the December Compact meeting as he is scheduled to have his wisdom teeth removed that day. Lovely.