It seemed obvious to me, but it caused a degree of hilarity at the Surrey Compact meeting yesterday, which is setting up the Compact as an independent charity and company. I have also been the butt of subsequent joshing by email.....most regrettable.
Not only is the Surrey Compact setting up independently, but the Surrey Sports Partnership is also considering cutting the umbilical cord with Surrey CC which hosts Active Surrey, but increasingly we're realising that the Council contributes between £50K and £70K of in kind support which is a lot to turn down.
On my favourite subject of commissioning/contracting I see Capita has indeed won a huge contract to provide back office support services to West Sussex CC (including finance, IT procuremnt even and support to the voluntary sector) worth something like £150 million...just at the time when KPMG have published a detailed study today on outsourcing, which says that commissioners do it to off-load problems..which simply come back in different forms. It doesn't work.
Our new emphasis on volunteering is bringing results for our Members, and we have just recruited a volunteer Research Assistant who will be great for us - more later.
Just signing off the Mem and Arts for what I have always called the Woking social enterprise, but will hereafter be named the Surrey Youth Enterprise Community interest company(CiC). SO the social enterprise really is starting up - we check on office premises on Monday.
I am finalising the Lottery Bid for Surrey Youth Enterprise today in time to meet the Lottery next week, and a grant- making trust in the following week. I had a really interesting focus group discussion with young adults at the Amber Foundation on Monday about their views and hopes for self- employment, which is partly what this project is about. Fingers crossed.
We had a good meeting with uniformed organisations on Wednesday evening about the Community Covenant Grant bid which we are giving the title: "Building bridges; Delivering results". That bid has to be in by 1 October, initially to a Surrey Panel, and then to the MoD. Decision in December. Aim is to recruit and train more leaders to the uniformed organisations, and especially to the military cadets. We will set up a web based "swap shop" to share physical resources (equipment, climbing walls, camp sites) and also specialist trainers/ instructors in archery, sailing, clay -pigeon shootin who are used by both military and civilian uniformed organisations and are in short supply. Fingers crossed again.
So it's been another really good week..and the sun is coming out for the Olympics and the school holidays. Oh- the Trustees and Flower Arranging? Always need odd numbers to work well!! (Very odd for Trustees!)
Mike
Friday, 20 July 2012
Friday, 13 July 2012
Why isn't every week like this?
It’s been a great week!
On Monday our great new Trustee, Matt Joblin came in to meet us all. Matt is Director of Surrey Community Film Unit which is a social enterprise and the relevance of which will become apparent later…count the mentions of social enterprise below!
Then I finished our draft contribution to a possible bid led by Surrey Community Action for the County Council’s infrastructure support contract, and so we are now ready to respond to whatever may occur there (open tender or selected bidders only).
I also finished our bid to the Lottery for the Surrey Youth Enterprise project which has four elements to it:
Our new volunteer, Volunteer Manager (Shelagh West) is beginning to have an impact, and we have 2 volunteers this week to work with us, and more to work on other projects.
Our links to Guildford College are growing apace. For example, some students there will be setting up our “100 focus” group, being a virtual network of young people with whom we can consult about issues; we think this is preferable for them to being invited on to our Board, which necessarily looks at fairly dry topics like business plan, finance, performance monitoring etc. There are 5 projects in all with the College…
Meeting on Wednesday with Business in the Community (nationally) about their United Futures programme which is a national version of our “4x4 project”. (Ours was first!) We are to be a case study for them exemplifying the benefits of links between corporates/business and youth organisations, and we’re invited to exhibit this at a BitC regional event (in Guildford ) in January (more details soon).
Great meeting yesterday with the philanthropist with whom we’ve been working to set up a social enterprise. The CiC will now start up in September, and we will be providing work experience for students at Guildford College on apprenticeship courses. The numbers will be a handful, but it will be a demonstration project.
And finally ..only because I’ve run out of time because there is more…we have set up a Chairman level meeting between Surrey Youth Focus and our sister organisation in West Sussex about closer collaborative working, and bidding for contracts on a sub – regional basis- Surrey/Sussex is 2.6 mill population.
Family coming over this week-end to watch Final of polo (like FA Cup) so let’s hope it’s a bit drier on Sunday.
Mike
On Monday our great new Trustee, Matt Joblin came in to meet us all. Matt is Director of Surrey Community Film Unit which is a social enterprise and the relevance of which will become apparent later…count the mentions of social enterprise below!
Then I finished our draft contribution to a possible bid led by Surrey Community Action for the County Council’s infrastructure support contract, and so we are now ready to respond to whatever may occur there (open tender or selected bidders only).
I also finished our bid to the Lottery for the Surrey Youth Enterprise project which has four elements to it:
- Running one day "how to" workshops for young people about self-employment, and social enterprise (delivered by people who have “done it” – not us)
- Providing business mentors in support of these young people trying to get started
- Engaging young people in setting up a website to provide information, advice , guidance, case studies, You Tube testimonials to young people
- Signposting to funding sources (Prince’s Trust, Fredericks Foundation etc)
Our new volunteer, Volunteer Manager (Shelagh West) is beginning to have an impact, and we have 2 volunteers this week to work with us, and more to work on other projects.
Our links to Guildford College are growing apace. For example, some students there will be setting up our “100 focus” group, being a virtual network of young people with whom we can consult about issues; we think this is preferable for them to being invited on to our Board, which necessarily looks at fairly dry topics like business plan, finance, performance monitoring etc. There are 5 projects in all with the College…
Meeting on Wednesday with Business in the Community (nationally) about their United Futures programme which is a national version of our “4x4 project”. (Ours was first!) We are to be a case study for them exemplifying the benefits of links between corporates/business and youth organisations, and we’re invited to exhibit this at a BitC regional event (in Guildford ) in January (more details soon).
Great meeting yesterday with the philanthropist with whom we’ve been working to set up a social enterprise. The CiC will now start up in September, and we will be providing work experience for students at Guildford College on apprenticeship courses. The numbers will be a handful, but it will be a demonstration project.
And finally ..only because I’ve run out of time because there is more…we have set up a Chairman level meeting between Surrey Youth Focus and our sister organisation in West Sussex about closer collaborative working, and bidding for contracts on a sub – regional basis- Surrey/Sussex is 2.6 mill population.
Family coming over this week-end to watch Final of polo (like FA Cup) so let’s hope it’s a bit drier on Sunday.
Mike
Friday, 6 July 2012
Inspiration
Our new volunteer, volunteer broker – Shelagh West is now getting her feet under the table and beginning to make the changes needed to enable member organisations to recruit more volunteers. We have tweaked our website to give greater prominence to volunteering, and she is also developing links already to organisations like Business in the Community who are looking for projects for their corporate volunteers. It will take a while to build up this service, but it is a key capacity building contribution from Surrey Youth Focus.
I am working with uniformed organisations (military and civilian) to put in an imaginative bid to the Armed Forces Community Grant Fund to enable the two groups to share resources and links. Talking of uniformed organisations, I have received a great video from Girlguiding Surrey West about the long term value of girlguiding to personal development and achievement. It will be on our website shortly.
My week has also been taken up with building up another impending bid to the Lottery and grant-making trusts for our Surrey Youth Enterprise support service aimed at encouraging young people into self-employment and social enterprise. The good news is that our own “Woking social enterprise” is progressing well now.
However, the real highspot of the week was going with my colleague Kate Peters to Shepperton Film Studios to watch two short films made by students (Year 10 and 11) of Magna Carta School who were taking a diploma course in film and media studies. They made the films with technical support from a professional – hence the film show at the private cinema the Korda Theatre at Shepperton Studios. The first film explored the negative images that young people encounter in their daily lives especially following last August’s riots, and they contrasted footage of the riots with filming from our Celebration of Youth event about the great things young people do.
The second film absolutely exemplified the last point and was the inspirational account of, and by Ben who is 16, and cares for his 19 year old sister, Ashleigh, who has Downs Syndrome. It was a "fly on the wall documentary" to which the whole family had very bravely consented. I was struck by the link between the two films with their underlying theme of the experience of discrimination, and yet the optimism and inspiration of young people.
It is a great project, and as soon as we get the films we’ll put them up on the website. Well done to Clare Erasmus (the teacher) and the students of Magna Carta school!”
Mike
Friday, 29 June 2012
Commissioning & Contracting
A quieter week by my standards, dominated by some mediation/facilitation work I undertook at the request of Surrey County Council between it and a member organisation over a long standing and difficult issue. The session went well for all parties, and I hope that the matter can now be resolved finally.
The other dominant issue this week has been the County Council’s process for commissioning infrastructure support services about which there is much public and private maneuvering. There was a session yesterday for potential bidders from within Surrey, but not open to external companies like Capita, Serco, which was a bit strange. This might be a Part B tender for the £0.5 mill services that previously were supplied on a grant basis by Surrey Community Action (SCA) and the district/borough CVS and others. My guess is that SCC will not go to open tender, but invite competitive grant bids from the SVAN network (minus SCA) and from a partnership of county level bodies, including us, and with SCA as the lead body. There will be grief, but this is probably unavoidable if performance is to be raised.
Interesting to see the evaluation of Surrey CC’s re-organisation of its Services for Young People and its commissioning/contracting process.
I have nearly finalised our own grant bid for Surrey Youth Enterprise, and am now working, quickly, on the MoD Community Grants bid due in by 9 July on behalf of our uniformed organisations.
Unfortunately, my meeting with the Bishop of Southwark’s Public Policy Adviser has been postponed from today – the Diocese being members of ours. One of the issues we were intending to discuss is the place of the church in what is called “the public square”- ie public discourse (press ,tv, social media, books etc) and the extent to which the Big Society is still alive as a concept, or whether it has been exposed as a fig leaf for cuts. Which takes me straight on to the ethics of banking…and beyond the scope of my work for SYF!
I got the prediction of an England v. Italy penalty shoot out right, but the wrong team won. I hope Italy win the final now – Sunday evening.. and Wimbledon!
Mike
The other dominant issue this week has been the County Council’s process for commissioning infrastructure support services about which there is much public and private maneuvering. There was a session yesterday for potential bidders from within Surrey, but not open to external companies like Capita, Serco, which was a bit strange. This might be a Part B tender for the £0.5 mill services that previously were supplied on a grant basis by Surrey Community Action (SCA) and the district/borough CVS and others. My guess is that SCC will not go to open tender, but invite competitive grant bids from the SVAN network (minus SCA) and from a partnership of county level bodies, including us, and with SCA as the lead body. There will be grief, but this is probably unavoidable if performance is to be raised.
Interesting to see the evaluation of Surrey CC’s re-organisation of its Services for Young People and its commissioning/contracting process.
I have nearly finalised our own grant bid for Surrey Youth Enterprise, and am now working, quickly, on the MoD Community Grants bid due in by 9 July on behalf of our uniformed organisations.
Unfortunately, my meeting with the Bishop of Southwark’s Public Policy Adviser has been postponed from today – the Diocese being members of ours. One of the issues we were intending to discuss is the place of the church in what is called “the public square”- ie public discourse (press ,tv, social media, books etc) and the extent to which the Big Society is still alive as a concept, or whether it has been exposed as a fig leaf for cuts. Which takes me straight on to the ethics of banking…and beyond the scope of my work for SYF!
I got the prediction of an England v. Italy penalty shoot out right, but the wrong team won. I hope Italy win the final now – Sunday evening.. and Wimbledon!
Mike
Friday, 22 June 2012
Chairman gets OBE
Surrey Youth Focus is delighted that our Chairman, David Hypher was awarded the OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours List; it is richly deserved, and we are so pleased for both him and his wife Pam. Congratulations.
And then a very busy and interesting week on a number of levels.
On Monday, I was at a meeting at the Cathedral refectory with Surrey Community Action and the CVs chaired by the Chairman of the County Council (Lavinia Sealy) and with the Chairman of the Council's Select Committee (Cllr Stve Cosser) also present. The purpose of the meeting was to explore the real views of the voluntary sector about the Council's intention to commission and contract infrastructure support services. This is a very sensitive and controversial issue...and always has been. Suffice to say that SCA disclosed that they would be bidding for the contract outside Surrey Voluntary Action Network (the CVs) of which they are a member.
Keen fans of this blog will recall that we have a Memorandum of Understanding with SCA about co-operative joint bidding..and SYF has recently had its strategic awayday.... We have now commented formally back to SCC about the consultation document on commissioning. All very tense.
Moving on.... a second matter we discussed in the strategy day was building links to our sister organisation at West Sussex CVYS, and so on Wednesday evening I was at the WSCVYS AGM to meet with their Chair and discuss taking matters forward, which we will now do in the sense of both Chairs meeting in due course. Having huffed and puffed to get our Annual Report done and into our auditor it was bit mortifying that WCVYS and my good friend Hanna Moore (CEO) had got their Annual Report done, the Accounts audited, a "pop" version written, AND held their AGM in mid June, just 2.5 months after close of last financial year. Impressive!!
Thursday morning saw my last appearance as Chair of South East Youth Partnership (now a network only, and supported by CHYPS) which had a workshop session with Mark Price and Jane Melvin from Brighton University about workforce development issues, and the market for youth work training. The debates about "what is youth work? and Is it a discrete profession?" continue. The cost of a foundation degree in youth work is now£13,000 (not even a BA).
The afternoon was at NESCOT an FE College and meeting of a sub-group of Surrey Connects about employability and soft skills for young people. There is a complaint from employers that even if young people have particular skills - in IT for example - they lack the self-presentation/ work ethic/ work experience skills, and this is something now being addressed. My participation was in pursuance of our grant bid around Surrey Youth Enterprise.
Then that same evening, I was at the Annual Hart Browne Economics Lecture at Surrey University. For those of us who are Radio 4 Today programme fans the star speaker was Justin Urquart-Stewart, who is a frequent commentator on the programme on financial matters. He was extremely amusing with a stand up comedian's (or former barrister's) line in banter and some solid comments. His theme was about building confidence, and promoting business. He pointed to the lack of historical awareness of Government Ministers and top civil servants. One telling fact was that the USA has 45 mill people on food stamps. The problem of economic inequality in the land of the free.
Finally, this (Friday) morning I have been back in Horsham with my colleagues from WSCVYS, ESCVYS and NCVYS with our usual slightly chaotic, but valuable exchange of experiences and discussion of issues.
England v. Italy on Sunday evening: - penalty shoot out maybe?
Have fun!
Mike
And then a very busy and interesting week on a number of levels.
On Monday, I was at a meeting at the Cathedral refectory with Surrey Community Action and the CVs chaired by the Chairman of the County Council (Lavinia Sealy) and with the Chairman of the Council's Select Committee (Cllr Stve Cosser) also present. The purpose of the meeting was to explore the real views of the voluntary sector about the Council's intention to commission and contract infrastructure support services. This is a very sensitive and controversial issue...and always has been. Suffice to say that SCA disclosed that they would be bidding for the contract outside Surrey Voluntary Action Network (the CVs) of which they are a member.
Keen fans of this blog will recall that we have a Memorandum of Understanding with SCA about co-operative joint bidding..and SYF has recently had its strategic awayday.... We have now commented formally back to SCC about the consultation document on commissioning. All very tense.
Moving on.... a second matter we discussed in the strategy day was building links to our sister organisation at West Sussex CVYS, and so on Wednesday evening I was at the WSCVYS AGM to meet with their Chair and discuss taking matters forward, which we will now do in the sense of both Chairs meeting in due course. Having huffed and puffed to get our Annual Report done and into our auditor it was bit mortifying that WCVYS and my good friend Hanna Moore (CEO) had got their Annual Report done, the Accounts audited, a "pop" version written, AND held their AGM in mid June, just 2.5 months after close of last financial year. Impressive!!
Thursday morning saw my last appearance as Chair of South East Youth Partnership (now a network only, and supported by CHYPS) which had a workshop session with Mark Price and Jane Melvin from Brighton University about workforce development issues, and the market for youth work training. The debates about "what is youth work? and Is it a discrete profession?" continue. The cost of a foundation degree in youth work is now£13,000 (not even a BA).
The afternoon was at NESCOT an FE College and meeting of a sub-group of Surrey Connects about employability and soft skills for young people. There is a complaint from employers that even if young people have particular skills - in IT for example - they lack the self-presentation/ work ethic/ work experience skills, and this is something now being addressed. My participation was in pursuance of our grant bid around Surrey Youth Enterprise.
Then that same evening, I was at the Annual Hart Browne Economics Lecture at Surrey University. For those of us who are Radio 4 Today programme fans the star speaker was Justin Urquart-Stewart, who is a frequent commentator on the programme on financial matters. He was extremely amusing with a stand up comedian's (or former barrister's) line in banter and some solid comments. His theme was about building confidence, and promoting business. He pointed to the lack of historical awareness of Government Ministers and top civil servants. One telling fact was that the USA has 45 mill people on food stamps. The problem of economic inequality in the land of the free.
Finally, this (Friday) morning I have been back in Horsham with my colleagues from WSCVYS, ESCVYS and NCVYS with our usual slightly chaotic, but valuable exchange of experiences and discussion of issues.
England v. Italy on Sunday evening: - penalty shoot out maybe?
Have fun!
Mike
Friday, 15 June 2012
40 years on
Well it has felt like a catch up week after the Jubilee weekend. We were sent brilliant pictures of Woking Sea Rangers at the Thames Pageant on the Albert Bridge and with the Sea Ranger cadets with Prince Harry - a great coup for them. The pictures are on our website.
More mundanely, I have written our Annual Report (and Accounts) for 2011/12 , so that we have the Report to hand rather earlier than in previous years to support grant bids. We will be producing a short popular version of it in colour as a marketing tool. Talking of marketing, we are delighted to announce that, subject to the approval of Trusteees on 31 July, Carol Brannigan will be joining the Board as an independent trustee, having just completed an appointment as interim Director of Marketing for KPMG Europe. Carol has a massively impressive CV and is about to cycle the Camino de santiago in Spain on a tandem with her husband. Walking the Camino is one of my main ambitions, so we have that in common. Carol will be a great asset to us, as she wants to be a "hands on" trustee. Great!
We are also pleased to say that Shelagh West has joined us a volunteer Volunteer Broker; Shelagh used to run her own IT company and then volunteered with the CAB for many years, so she is an ideal person to link between our member organisations and corporates / employers who may be looking for volunteering projects for their staff.
I had a useful mentoring session with my business mentor on Thursday morning, and this was followed by a joint meeting of the Surrey 14-19 Partnership Board with the Youth Justice Board. There were several interesting items - an Employability Plan (except that it didn't have any detail about what when, how) to encourage young people, especially NEETS into training and employment. I am convinced that our Surrey Youth Enterprise grant bid (still in progress) will hit the mark. Another intersting item was the product of focus discussions with some 100 young people about their hopes and fears, and there were some very telling remarks. For some there is a sense that if they miss out at school, they are doomed...we must not let this impression take hold. We'll put the powepoint up on the website as soon as it's to hand.
Well we have a 40th wedding anniversary lunch party in the garden on Saturday (we have a marquee up) so we hope it doesn't rain...and that England beat Sweden tonight(Friday). We have 40 family and friends coming....and lots of fizz! Have fun because I will!
Mike
More mundanely, I have written our Annual Report (and Accounts) for 2011/12 , so that we have the Report to hand rather earlier than in previous years to support grant bids. We will be producing a short popular version of it in colour as a marketing tool. Talking of marketing, we are delighted to announce that, subject to the approval of Trusteees on 31 July, Carol Brannigan will be joining the Board as an independent trustee, having just completed an appointment as interim Director of Marketing for KPMG Europe. Carol has a massively impressive CV and is about to cycle the Camino de santiago in Spain on a tandem with her husband. Walking the Camino is one of my main ambitions, so we have that in common. Carol will be a great asset to us, as she wants to be a "hands on" trustee. Great!
We are also pleased to say that Shelagh West has joined us a volunteer Volunteer Broker; Shelagh used to run her own IT company and then volunteered with the CAB for many years, so she is an ideal person to link between our member organisations and corporates / employers who may be looking for volunteering projects for their staff.
I had a useful mentoring session with my business mentor on Thursday morning, and this was followed by a joint meeting of the Surrey 14-19 Partnership Board with the Youth Justice Board. There were several interesting items - an Employability Plan (except that it didn't have any detail about what when, how) to encourage young people, especially NEETS into training and employment. I am convinced that our Surrey Youth Enterprise grant bid (still in progress) will hit the mark. Another intersting item was the product of focus discussions with some 100 young people about their hopes and fears, and there were some very telling remarks. For some there is a sense that if they miss out at school, they are doomed...we must not let this impression take hold. We'll put the powepoint up on the website as soon as it's to hand.
Well we have a 40th wedding anniversary lunch party in the garden on Saturday (we have a marquee up) so we hope it doesn't rain...and that England beat Sweden tonight(Friday). We have 40 family and friends coming....and lots of fizz! Have fun because I will!
Mike
Friday, 8 June 2012
If you can't beat them - join them
Well I enjoyed watching the Jubilee from the warmth and comfort of my sitting room in the main.. Unlike Woking Sea Rangers who were on the Albert Bridge for the River pageant on the cold and wet Sunday afternoon…and met Prince Harry, whilst Surrey Care Trust had their Swingbridge Boat in the river flotilla. Well done all – picture to follow on website and Surrey Youth News.
My excuse is that I was finalising the dissertation to go off to be bound so that it can then be submitted to the examiners..and I have done that, so it’s now all done, and I have a life back after 3 years and £4,000! Yeah I know…all self–inflicted…but great learning!! However my wife is still reflecting on what might have been done with £4K and about £500 worth of books!
It’s felt like an odd, short week, with lots of folks on leave for school holidays and the traffic much lighter.
However, we have some more bits of good news. My Chairman and I have met with the newly appointed Bishop of Croydon this morning about ways and means by which we might link more closely into that part of Southwark Diocese that extends into east Surrey – basically Reigate and Banstead, and Tandridge. We had a very good discussion and will be taking steps to improve mutual communications, and exchange of information, especially about current issues affecting young people.
Then a recent graduate in Social policy and Criminology has volunteered to be a research assistant with us, and we are delighted to have her start with us shortly to help me with the long awaited Research Report.
I have nearly finalised the Surrey Youth Enterprise project proposal this week and will be seeking funding for it from GMTs and others.
So it’s been a good week. I am now back in the gym and running again after 12 months of no sport and of course South Africa v. England (rugby obviously) has to be watched on Saturday afternoon…ignore the football (Monday pm).
And finally, against my better judgement, and my aversion to mixing work time, and home time, I have succumbed to a smartphone (Samsung Galaxy- I disapprove of Apple – shedloads of money which they do not give away to good causes)………..and I am ashamed to say….I think it’s great!
Mike
My excuse is that I was finalising the dissertation to go off to be bound so that it can then be submitted to the examiners..and I have done that, so it’s now all done, and I have a life back after 3 years and £4,000! Yeah I know…all self–inflicted…but great learning!! However my wife is still reflecting on what might have been done with £4K and about £500 worth of books!
It’s felt like an odd, short week, with lots of folks on leave for school holidays and the traffic much lighter.
However, we have some more bits of good news. My Chairman and I have met with the newly appointed Bishop of Croydon this morning about ways and means by which we might link more closely into that part of Southwark Diocese that extends into east Surrey – basically Reigate and Banstead, and Tandridge. We had a very good discussion and will be taking steps to improve mutual communications, and exchange of information, especially about current issues affecting young people.
Then a recent graduate in Social policy and Criminology has volunteered to be a research assistant with us, and we are delighted to have her start with us shortly to help me with the long awaited Research Report.
I have nearly finalised the Surrey Youth Enterprise project proposal this week and will be seeking funding for it from GMTs and others.
So it’s been a good week. I am now back in the gym and running again after 12 months of no sport and of course South Africa v. England (rugby obviously) has to be watched on Saturday afternoon…ignore the football (Monday pm).
And finally, against my better judgement, and my aversion to mixing work time, and home time, I have succumbed to a smartphone (Samsung Galaxy- I disapprove of Apple – shedloads of money which they do not give away to good causes)………..and I am ashamed to say….I think it’s great!
Mike
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