Friday 16 May 2014

Successor CEO & launch of Strategic Review

The Chairman of SYF has announced the appointment of Cate Newnes – Smith as my successor as CEO. Cate has a strong business and management background originally with Reuters, then in consultancy and with The Young Foundation.  She became CEO of the London Innovation Centre and is a long serving trustee of Groundworks, the charity that runs environmental projects in communities. Her full biography is on  our website.  Cate and I are meeting behind the scenes to ensure a smooth transition from the end of August when I retire. Cate starts on 1 Sept. and will be brilliant for SYF.

We had a great event at County Hall last night - a reception for SYF existing and prospective members very generously hosted by the Chairman of the County Council, David Munro, who is one of our Patrons. It was an opportunity for networking by the 80 + people there, and to hear from the staff team about what we can offer our member organisations. Garath Symonds, Assistant Director for Young People talked about the re-commissioning of £32 mill. services that he is undertaking.  Finally, we were able to pay tribute to David Hypher our recently retired Chairman who was warmly thanked by David Munro and given a framed scroll to mark the occasion.

The “Young Surrey: Strategic Review 2014-15” was launched, and can be found on our website from Monday. It does what it says – looks at: 
·         economic trends, because that affects the resource envelope for working with young people,
·         the implications of Government policies for young people,
·         the  differences in the values of different generations, and  a reflection on the new “Generation Zero” of today and the skills they will need to acquire for the future
·         statistics about the needs of young people in Surrey and a reflection on the importance of emotional intelligence and relationship skills as a prerequisite to learning and, later, employment. 
The point of the Strategic Review is to give member organisations information about the changing “big picture”-  its challenges and opportunities.

I am delighted that our work with Business in the Community (BitC) is resulting in a major international engineering company refurbishing one of our member organisations’ youth centre buildings  today with about 25 of its highly skilled staff descending on the centre to blitz its electrical, plumbing and decorative work…. For free! A great example of collaboration.

Interested to see that the third tranche of the famous Peterborough prison social impact bond (sib) is not being put out to the market for funding, but being commissioned directly by Government on a direct payment by results basis. This is being reported as the death knell of sibs.

And finally, back to last night’s reception, my thanks to my great team who work so hard, and deliver so much.
          Mike 

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