Thursday, 13 November 2008

At Hatfield’s Fielder Centre this morning, there was a first meeting to establish a statutory-voluntary group to help co-ordinate county-wide activity on National Indicators 4, 6 and 7. But after a week’s absence I had to give priority to returning to Watford and it was good to be back: everything is moving forward but at slightly different speeds and things needed a little tweaking to ensure they don’t start diverging and conflicting.

That old potato

My trustees’ meeting went well. Most helpfully, Phil Willerton of the YMCA was co-opted back onto the Board. We also discussed board development, strategic planning, partnership with other CVSs, fundraising, our engagement with the Holywell Centre, and membership. The notion of membership must cause groans throughout every CVS in the land. It’s not that we don’t like members; we love them. It is just that there are an infinite number of policy options, few of which seem to make much difference to the number of actual members. This time we have tackled the issue by drawing a distinction between “members” (this has a very specific meaning for a limited company) and affiliates. We shall see ...