Hello, here is the latest news and information for voluntary organisations in Havering

News and information for voluntary organisations

Week ending Friday 4 November 2016

Compact update

Compact – November

Ensemble Community Solutions Ltd the new Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for Havering Charities takes shape.

Following a positive meeting on 10th October where Havering Charities had opportunity to understand how the new SPV would help them, there has been good sign up by Charities to be part of this new venture. This group of Charities will now form the initial Advisory Group and will help shape the final Governance Model. This is great progress as notice has been given on commissioned services by London Borough of Havering and the new procurement exercise is now likely to start at the beginning of December. The SPV will be in place to help member Charities meet this new procurement environment.

Good news is that the opportunity to be part of the SPV is ongoing and you can still at any time enquire about becoming part of this and formally join at any time. Full information about the SPV can be found www.ensemble.org.uk

Just to remind all Charities that the first Compact Forum is being held on the 22nd November at 1pm, Havering Clinical Commissioning Group 3rd Floor, Imperial Offices, Bentley Room 2-4 Eastern Road, Romford Essex RM1 3PJ. Don’t forget to put the date in your diary and to express an interest if you would like to be a Compact Champion.

Do keep checking the Compact web page for other information and to sign up your organisation https://www3.havering.gov.uk/Pages/Services/Havering-compact.aspx

Paul Rose

Chair, Havering Compact

Compact Forum

The first Compact Forum meeting will follow on from the Compact Annual General Meeting on Tuesday 22nd November at 2pm, Havering Clinical Commissioning Group 3rd Floor, Imperial Offices, Bentley Room 2-4 Eastern Road, Romford Essex RM1 3PJ.

The Forum is open to all Havering voluntary and community organisations, as well as partners to attend and will enable wider engagement and involvement in the Compact Steering Group.

There will also be opportunity for the VCS organisations to participate in an open discussion on topics of interest, concern and relevance to the sector.

If you are interested in attending please email vcs@havering.gov.uk

Interested in Procurement training?

The Council’s Strategic Procurement Unit has run 4 Procurement training sessions during 2016 to the voluntary & community organisations and small & medium enterprises, covering an overview of how to work with the Council and what it means to be a Council supplier.

At the moment we work on a request basis to ensure that there are sufficient demands to make use of the resources that need to be put in place. Where the Council is running a procurement process, a ‘Tender’, we will often be requested to facilitate a discussion with suppliers who have expressed an interest in the Tender as to how we work. Currently this is ad hoc due to the unknown desire for us to facilitate but if you can feed back to vcs@havering.gov.uk expressing an interest in taking part we can aim to plan future events.

ROPES (Resourcing Older People's Employment Support)

ROPES (Resourcing Older People's Employment Support) is a specialised training programme which aims to build or extend organisations’ expertise in providing practical advice and signposting support for older working age adults (50+) re employment, training and related needs.

Wise Age is offering places to at least 4 organisations, with places for 2 - 4 staff/volunteers from each organisation. All aspects of ROPES are offered FREE.

Wise Age – ROPES project (Resourcing Older People’s Employment Support) will be running workshops from:

Havering Volunteer Centre, Community Reach House,
32-34 The High Street, Romford, Essex, RM1 1HR

On 10th, 17th & 24th November 2016 10-3pm.

If you are interested in being part of this new initiative please let us know, by email to the address below. Similarly if you have any queries or need more information please do not hesitate to contact us at ropesnetwork@gmail.com

Bold Leadership in Uncertain Times

18th November 2016 - 10:00am - 4:00pm City Hall, The Queen's Walk, London
SE1 2AA

This event is organised by Greater London Volunteering

Join us for our charity leadership conference for London - "Bold leadership in uncertain times" - for Trustees, Chief Executives and community leaders across the capital.

This free event is at City Hall on Friday 18 November 2016, with a conference session 10am-12.30pm, a lunch and networking marketplace 12.30-1.30pm, and then optional afternoon workshops 1.30-3.30pm. .

Contact Phone: 0207 125 0151

Email: info@glv.org.uk

Community Directory

London Borough of Havering is compiling an online directory which will comprise of;

Family Service Information
Community and Voluntary organisations
Practitioners area

All VCS organisations currently listed on our database will automatically be added to the online directory. An email will be sent informing you of the move to this online facility, if you do not wish to be included please inform us at vcs@havering.gov.uk

Alternatively if your organisation would like to be added please complete the online form https://www3.havering.gov.uk/Pages/Category/Voluntary-Sector.aspx

Please vote for Citizens Advice Havering "Absolutely Fabulous Volunteers" project at Aviva's Community Fund website

Would you mind taking five minutes to go onto the AVIVA website below, register and vote for our project which is the “Absolutely Fabulous Volunteers” project that could benefit a lot of people in the London Borough of Havering.

The Absolutely Fabulous Volunteers project is about enabling Havering Citizens Advice to recruit and train more volunteers to meet the demand from the community for its services. These services are FREE for everyone and provided by our absolutely fabulous volunteers but we need more of them!!

Any member of our community can come and seek our help on any issue ranging from problems with goods and services to being bullied in the work place. Our volunteers are trained to provide the support required for issues people have and often choose to give this support in areas they feel particularly passionate about. Demand for assistance from us as a local charity is so high that between April 2016 to date we have had to turn away over 550 people whilst we have been able to see 1263 people.

With more volunteers recruited and trained we would be able to open for more hours in more places, including increasing local library availability by increasing our services there, and help more people rather than having to turn so many away.

By voting for this project you will enable us to put together and deliver a major recruitment drive this year to encourage people to volunteer in the community so we can meet the demand placed on our service. We are hoping that this will then make us very busy providing the training necessary to at least 60 more volunteers who would then help our existing 70 volunteers to deliver this much needed support.

Voting is open now and closes on 18th November 2016. The Aviva Community Fund website with our project info can be accessed by clicking on the link https://community-fund.aviva.co.uk/voting/project/view/16-834

From there you need to go to the top right hand side “Login/Register”. If you have registered and have voted for projects before then you can “Login” as you usually do with the password you used before. If you have never voted before then you need to “Register” using an e-mail address and a password of your choice and follow the next steps. You have an allocation of 10 votes and can use them all on one project or spread them over several.

We would be grateful if you could spread the word to friends and family as well as other colleagues, if we don’t get lots of votes we won’t get through to the next stage.

Thanking you in advance for your support

Citizens Advice Havering

Understanding Procurement

Procurement Term of the Month - Clarification

Clarification is sought to make a clause or term in a proposal or tender offer clearer or better defined for all parties involved, in order to avoid any misunderstanding or incorrect/unfair assumption being made. Governance regimes that do not allow post-offer negotiation may allow clarification as long as the terms of the bidder’s offer are not changed. See also Negotiation.

Funding opportunities

Big Lottery Fund

The Big Lottery Fund (BIG) has announced that it is accepting applications to it new £40 million Youth Investment Fund.

The Youth Investment Fund will support voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) youth organisations to deliver, expand and create high quality local youth provision in targeted communities across England. Successful applicants will have funding available up until 2020. Funding of between £50,000 and £150,000 per year is available for up to 3 years within six geographical clusters (West Midlands Urban, London East, Tees Valley & Sunderland, Bristol & Somerset, Eastern Counties and Liverpool City Region), will need to have a strong track record of delivering services to young people aged 10-18 (up to 25 if disabled) and have an annual income in the region of £300,000 to £2 million.

In addition, to ensure that the size of the funding is proportionate to the size of the applicant's organisation, BIG would also expect the average annual grant to be no more than 25% of the annual income. BIG anticipate funding in the region of 60-75 applications within the targeted areas.

The closing date for applications is 5pm on the 11th November 2016.

https://www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/global-content/programmes/england/youth-investment-fund

£40m Homelessness Prevention Programme Announced (England)

The Government has announced a new £40 million programme to provide an innovative approach to tackling homelessness. The programme aims to tackle homelessness by focusing on the underlying issues which can lead to somebody losing their home. This includes £10 million for a rough sleeping prevention fund to help individuals who might be struggling to get by from ending up on the street. A further £10 million will be available through the Social Impact Bond programme which will help long-term rough sleepers to address underlying issues such as poor mental health or substance abuse to help stop them from living on, and returning to, the streets. The remaining £20 million will be available to local authorities to trial new initiatives, responding to the needs in their communities and focusing on prevention at an earlier stage. The closing date for applications is the 28th November 2016.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/40-million-homelessness-prevention-programme-announced

The William Wates Memorial Trust (UK with pref. for London and South East

Not for profit organisation based in London and the South East working with disadvantaged young people may be eligible to apply for funding through the William Wates Memorial Trust. The Trust provides grants for projects that focus on projects that help the most disadvantaged 5-19 year olds. The aim of the Trust is to encourage disadvantaged and vulnerable young people away from anti-social behaviour and criminal activity. The Trustees will primarily support projects in London and the South East. However, they will also consider nationwide projects. To be eligible, applicants need to be registered charities or not for profit organisations. The deadline for applications is the 10th November 2016.

http://www.wwmt.org/

Comic Relief Local Communities

The London Community Foundation has announced that the Comic Relief Local Communities programme is open for applications.

Not for profit organisations such as community groups, resident associations, community centres, social enterprises, CIC's and credit unions can apply for funding of between £1,000 and £10,000 for projects that empower local people enabling them to create lasting change in their communities. During this funding round, organisations can apply for funding to maximise people's ability to strengthen community cohesion and build social capacity. Projects should be run by people directly affected by the issues they are dealing with and priority will be given to small, locally based groups or organisations in areas of disadvantage that have a clear understanding of the needs of their community. A Local Communities grant must be at least 30% of the total cost of the project.

The Local Communities Programme will run for 18 months and during this time, grants of between £1,000 and £10,000 will be available.

The programme aims to empower local people, enabling them to create lasting change in their communities. Projects should be run by people directly affected by the issues they are dealing with and priority will be given to small, locally based groups and organisations in areas of disadvantage that have a clear understanding of the needs of their community.

Themes

Under the programme, organisations can apply for funding to:

Improve people's life skills, education, employability and enterprise
Maximise people's ability to strengthen community cohesion and build social capacity
Promote reduction of isolation and disadvantage and access to services
Advance people's physical and mental health, wellbeing and safety

There will be a different theme under which you can apply in each round.

Round - 25

Opens - 10 October

Theme - Maximise people’s ability to strengthen community cohesion and build social capacity

Deadline - 5pm on 6 December

Activity must start after - 14 February 2017

http://www.londoncf.org.uk/grants/available-grants/havering.aspx

City Bridge Trust

The Trust currently awards around £20m per year to charitable causes in London. The majority of these grants are made under our Investing in Londoners scheme, which has a number of programmes listed below:

English for Speakers of Other Languages
Improving Londoners’ Mental Health
Improving London’s Environment
Making London More Inclusive
Making London Safer
Older Londoners
Reducing Poverty
Resettlement and Rehabilitation of Offenders
Strengthening London’s Voluntary Sector
Eco-audits
London Youth Quality Mark Awards

There are currently no closing dates for applications for any these programmes

http://www.citybridgetrust.org.uk/

Funding for Projects Benefitting Physically and Mentally Disabled and Disadvanted Adults (England)

The next round of funding from the Greenhall Community Fund will re-open for applications on 1st November 2016. This round will fund projects benefitting physically and mentally disabled and disadvantaged people over the age of 25. Only the first 100 applications received will be forwarded to the trustee board for consideration and they will meet in May 2017 to allocate the funds. The grants of £1,000 to £10,000 are only available to trusts, associations, institutions or organisations registered as charities in England. Preference will be given to applications for specific projects rather than to supplement funds used for general purposes. Applications are accepted from all areas of England however some preference will be given to charities operating in Yorkshire.

http://greenhallfoundation.org/

BBC Children in Need Main Grant Programme (UK)

The next closing date for applications to the BBC Children in Need Main Grants programme is the 13th January 2017.

Grants of over £10,000 per project are available to not for profit organisations that work with young people who are experiencing disadvantage through:

Illness, distress, abuse or neglect
Any kind of disability
Behavioural or psychological difficulties
And / or living in poverty or situations of deprivation.

Schools can also apply for funding but the project must be additional to their statutory duties.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3XW7FvN20PD3xr2c1T62Xly/main-grants

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