Tuesday, 21 October 2008

I did consider attending the AGM of Cover (the regional voluntary sector agency for the East of England) but it is a long journey and I had more local concerns.

Helen Price and I met for a talk about volunteering and the possible creation of a Good Neighbours scheme in Watford. At a national level, the resources for volunteering are few and the future looks increasingly bleak. V-base is the national database solution and I think there are considerable difficulties with this application. The V-base people consulted Volunteer Centres about paying for the software licenses and they found Volunteer Centres predictably opposed to this. V-base are sensitive to this and now say they will instead charge a “V-base membership fee” to cover licensing, support, training and development. It is not clear how Volunteer Centres will notice a difference between the two approaches – or indeed why they were consulted in the first place.

Our local concern is not to prove WB Yeats’s observation that “things fall apart, the centre cannot hold”. Our concern is very specific: how best to deploy our very limited resources in Watford to promote volunteering and support our member organisations. It seems very unlikely that the answer to this will involve paying for the uncertain pleasure of sharing volunteering data with another organisation.

Watford

Watford holds a unique position in post-modernist uber-ironic Britain. Some regard Watford with indifference and scorn as the epitome of suburban small-town middle-England: hard-working, practical, slightly puritanical, minding our own business, rubbing along, muddling through, getting on with our lives. Other’s regard Watford with familiar affection as the epitome of suburban small-town middle-England: hard-working, practical, slightly puritanical, minding our own business, rubbing along, muddling through, getting on with our lives.

There is a narrow path across the no-man’s land between these two opposing world views. Two steps to one side Watford is a national joke. Two steps to the other we are a national icon. I think Watford quietly rejoices in the ambiguity.

This evening I attended a meeting of Watford’s Scrutiny Committee which considered how best to promote civic pride in Watford. The answer is not that we should aspire to be a national icon; teh answer is that we must revel in our ambiguous twi-light status.