Monday, 5 February 2007

So this morning it was back to Watford for a busy day at WCVS.

9:00 am I met with Helen (Volunteer Centre organiser) and Fiona Brown of HCC to discuss the Local Area Agreement targets for volunteering in Hertfordshire. As I’ve written before, these targets present some serious problems for those in charge of the Hertfordshire LAA, and these problems seem not to be being addressed.

Next week, Helen and I are doing a presentation to the One Watford group. Fiona was as helpful as she could be, but there is still much work to be done. I must write to HCC before the weekend seeking clarification.

At 10:30 I headed off to Home-Start to meet with Vivienne who had kindly agreed to play guinea pig for WCVS’s new “health check”. This is designed to be a first benchmarking exewrcise before an organisation embarks on a quality assurance programme such as PQASSO. The exercise worked very well with Vivienne and took about 45 minutes. But Vivienne is already very conversant with PQASSO and QA issues: with someone less experienced (the people it’s designed for) it would have taken much longer.

I hurried back from Home-Start to meet with Michele Henington of WBC. She visited 149 The Parade to provide a rental figure for the offices soon to be occupied by the Watford Credit Union. Michele and I had a long-ish chat about the origin of the building and the future accommodation needs of WCVS and the voluntary sector in Watford.

After this, I met briefly with Vanessa. Then I went to our training room to try and get our TV and video working for a training event we have booked for tomorrow. Others had tried before me (Sue, Anne, Bobby) so I held out little hope and this turned out to be prescient. I discussed options with Anne and eventually sourced a new TV and video for £20. Anne agreed to drive off to collect them.

I then met with Helen again. First, we signed off her annual review. Secondly, we revisited Volunteer Centre procedures. Thirdly we began planning our One Watford presentation.

At 5:00 I went to the Multi-Cultural Community Centre to see something of their work and to meet with trustees of the Watford Racial Equality Council to advise on the next step in winding up the organisation.

I arrived back at the office about 7:00. In my absence, Anne had returned and set up the training room (thanks Anne!). I collected some papers for tomorrow’s meetings and headed home about 8:00.