Thursday, 13 March 2008

Today's Main Event was a much-needed meeting to start planning our CRM implementation. Sha-Lee, Maria, Vanessa, Anne, Helen and I met for a pretty thorough discussion about the implementation timetable and the implications for our work.

Our plan is to carry out three installations of CRM. The first installation has taken place and Sha-Lee and I are exploring the software’s full capacity and parameters. We are making notes on the configuration and customisation that we need. There will be a second test installation during April: this will incorporate our first pass customisation and will then be tested by all system users to make sure that the customisations will work. Our final installation will come only once we have tested the second installation thoroughly and prepared a list of further adaptations.

Later in the day, I issued our response to the consultation on Hertfordshire’s LAA2 and on the Sustainable Community Strategy. Given the timetable, there was no realistic opportunity to consult on this with member organisations, as per best practice. It was more a case of going to the barricades to get something in as a response while it might still have an impact. On this occasion I was championing the local voluntary sector rather than representing their specific views.

While I was still working on the response, I heard from Ann Jansz that LAA2 would after all include a goal on Volunteering. I also want the commitment to create an environment for a thriving voluntary sector which I think is much more to the point, but at least we no we now have the right direction of travel. Well done Ann!

I also agreed with Jacquie Hime that Hertfordshire should offer to host an East of England regional meeting to try and maintain the momentum toward creating a regional VCS strategy. We shall see.