The leaders of the Majority Black Led Churches (MBLC) in Nottingham have united over their concerns about the disproportionate effects of Covid-19 and the subsequent hesitance to take up vaccinations within the communities they serve. They developed the idea of equipping volunteers with the tools they need to deliver factual messages about the vaccination programme to help people make informed choices and increase take up.

As a network, MBLC doesn't have the infrastructure to directly employ someone to support the volunteers. So, they partnered with us, and NCVS agreed to be the employer of record for the MBLC Volunteer Coordinator to enable this vital work to happen.

Following a successful recruitment, NCVS is delighted to introduce Oluwatobi Ojewola who has taken up this role.

Trustees’ Week is an annual event showcasing the great work of the 700,000 volunteer trustees who run charities in England and Wales. To all trustees, we say thank you for playing a vital role, volunteering your time and working together to make important decisions about your charity’s work.

On Tuesday 2 November from 6pm to 8pm, via Zoom, we're running our popular NCVS course 'Being a Trustee: what does it mean?' There's still time to register your place at a cost of £20 per participant. Please register here (registration closes on Sunday 31 October at 4pm).

The following week, join our online 'Trustees' Safeguarding Responsibilities' course. Please register here (£15 per participant).

Local organisations seeking to recruit trustees can add details to our searchable database of volunteer opportunities. Take a look at the trustee roles currently featured on the NCVS website (this link displays results for a filtered search of 'Trustees and Committee'). If your trustee vacancy doesn't feature, or you need assistance in developing a trustee role description, email volunteercentre@nottinghamcvs.co.uk.

There are lots of other ideas for getting involved on the Trustees' Week website.

Deadline for applications: 5.30pm on Monday 1 November 2021

There is a short amount of time left to apply to the Dream Fund, which awards funds thanks to players of People's Postcode Lottery.

The Dream Fund gives organisations the chance to deliver the project they have always dreamed of, but never had the opportunity to bring to life. Applications are only accepted from charitable organisations who are collaborating with other not-for-profit partners. You are asked to think big and be ambitious.

The focus of this year's Dream Fund is projects that are looking to deliver systemic change in the following funding categories:

• Environment/conservation
• Social inequality
• Pandemic recovery.

There is a total award fund of £3.5 million and charities can apply for up to £1.25 million for their project. As always, please read the guidelines carefully.

Deadline for first round applications: Friday 12 November 2021

Groundwork is managing this new fund on behalf of Comic Relief in England. It is a two-year fund and there will be three grant application rounds. The fund is for charitable organisations with an income of less than £250,000 to deliver projects within four themes:

• A Safe Place To Be – supporting people to rebuild their lives because of
  homelessness or forced migration
• Children Survive and Thrive – supporting children up to the age of 11 to grow, play and learn
• Fighting for Gender Justice – championing women and girls, including initiatives tacking domestic violence, abuse or exploitation
• Mental Health Matters – supporting good mental health in communities and tackling stigma and discrimination.

Grants of up to £10,000 are available to support project delivery and organisational capacity building. Your application must include both elements and be split as follows: up to £1,000 for capacity building and up to £9,000 for project delivery.

There will be two further rounds of funding (opening in March and October 2022).

Get your bike checked over and running smoothly. Minor repairs will be done for free by Nottingham Bikeworks. November Dr Bike sessions include a 'Be Bright Be Seen' lock, lights and hi viz giveaway to help keep you moving this winter.

Find Dr Bike during November at (weather permitting!):

Bulwell Riverside, Outside the pharmacy, NG6 8QJ
Tuesday 2 November 2021, 12.30pm to 3.30pm

Bridges Community Trust, Bridgeway Centre, The Meadows, NG2 2JD
Wednesday 3 November 2021, 12.30pm to 3.30pm

Dales Centre Library, 208 Sneinton Dale, NG2 4HJ
Wednesday 10th November 2021, 12.30pm to 3.30pm

Strelley Road Library, Outside front entrance, NG8 3AP
Wednesday 17 November 2021, 12.30pm to 3.30pm

The Chase Neighbourhood Centre, St Ann’s, NG3 4EZ
Thursday 18 November 2021, 12.30pm to 3.30pm

Email access@sustrans.org.uk to secure your 30 minute slot or turn up on the day.

The Sustrans Access project supports jobseekers, new starters and people attending employability related training and interviews with travel planning and can offer cycle services such as a free bike, cycle training and bike maintenance courses.

Tuesday 9 November 2021, 10.30am to 11.45am

An interactive online session for Trustees (or members of Management Committees) of organisations whose activities put them in contact with vulnerable adults or children.

Cost: £15 per participant

Thursday 18 November 2021, 10.30am to 1.45pm

An online course giving a basic understanding of the roles and responsibilities of the Designated Safeguarding Lead Person.

Before registering for this Designated Lead course, participants should ensure they have attended the NCVS Introduction to Safeguarding Children and Young People course (or alternate refresher training) within the last three years.

Cost: £25 per participant

Thursday 6 January 2022, 10.30am to 1.45pm

An online course giving a basic understanding of roles and responsibilities in the safeguarding of adults and how to respond to concerns.

Cost: £25 per participant

Wednesday 19 January 2022, 10.30am to 1.45pm

An online course giving a basic understanding of roles and responsibilities in the safeguarding of children and young people and how to respond to concerns. 

Cost: £25 per participant

Tuesday 2 November 2021, 6pm to 8pm

This two-hour online session covers the basic information for all trustees, whether you are new to the role or long-established.

Cost: £20 per participant

Thursday 4 November 2021, 11am to 1pm

Are you acting as secretary or note taker, or do you need to record meetings? Learn how to take effective minutes and make your task easier. This two-hour online session replaces our previous face-to-face three-hour course and will take you through the process of producing a 'minute'.

Cost: £20 per participant 

Wednesday 8 December 2021, 10am to 12noon

What is the right structure for your organisation? This new two-hour online session will explain your options and provide you with some useful tips to help you through the process of registration and beyond.

Cost: £20 per participant

Tuesday 25 January 2022, 10am to 11.15am

For organisations and community groups who are new to applying for funding, or for those in need of a refresher. Relevant for groups applying for COVID-19 funding and recovery support as well as other general funding.

Cost: £10 per participant

Wednesday 10 November 2021, 10am to 12.15pm

A two-hour online course (with short break included) for Leaders of Volunteers to start to develop an understanding of some of the legal requirements that relate to your volunteering programme.

Cost: £20 per participant

Wednesday 1 December 2021, 10am to 11am

This one-hour online session aims to share some ideas about how best to deal with the inevitable disagreements, personality clashes and conflicts that arise from time to time among a team of volunteers.

Cost: £10 per participant

Tuesday 7 December 2021, 2pm to 3pm

A one-hour online session to help your volunteer role descriptions stand out, ensuring you attract enthusiastic volunteers.

Cost: £10 per participant

Wednesday 12 January 2022, 10am to 11am

This one-hour online session looks at methods that have proved to be effective in volunteer leadership, including the best ways to plan, involve, support and retain volunteers.

Cost: £10 per participant

The Practice Development Unit (PDU) aims to promote and facilitate collaborative learning and the sharing of good practice among professionals and volunteers from all sectors, in Nottingham and neighbouring areas, who work with people experiencing multiple disadvantage (understood as a combination of mental ill-health, substance misuse, homelessness, offending and domestic abuse, among other issues).

Contact our coordinator Filipa Santos for more information by sending an email to enquiries@pdunottingham.org

Join our free online hub www.pdunottingham.org

Follow us on Twitter @NottinghamCVS #PDUNottingham.

There is still time to get involved in the independent evaluation of the PDU that is being led by BVSC and Ideas to Impact. We would like to ensure that as many voices as possible are represented in this evaluation.

If you have attended or supported PDU activities before, we would be really grateful if you could take the time to complete this short survey about the impact the PDU has had on your work and the local system.

Your responses will be anonymous and by taking part you’ll also have the chance to win a £50 donation to a charity of your choice. The survey takes about 12 minutes to complete and is open for responses until Monday 1 November 2021.

Wednesday 10 November 2021, from 9.30am to 1pm
Online via Zoom

Places are still available for our free online event exploring the role of work-related activity in recovery and resettlement for people facing Severe and Multiple Disadvantage (SMD). This event will seek to challenge stigma and limiting beliefs around people’s readiness for employment or skills development activities. Registrations close at 12 noon on Tuesday 9 November.

Tuesday 23 November 2021, from 9.30am to 4.30pm
Online via Zoom

An online development day dedicated to women’s experiences of severe and multiple disadvantage (SMD). There will be a range of workshops and talks to choose from, covering topics such as Housing First for women who sex work, the impacts of losing children into care and the experiences of women from minority ethnic backgrounds.

This day will also hold the launch of a Nottingham-based piece of research exploring some of the specific challenges faced by women experiencing multiple disadvantage.

The full programme for the day will be announced soon. Participants will be able to register to attend all sessions or a selection of them. For now, we encourage you to email enquiries@pdunottingham.org to register your interest and save your place.

Free, online course from The King's Fund, study at your own pace

This introductory three-week course (2 hours study recommended per week) from The King’s Fund is for anyone working in or interested in health and social care in its broadest sense, regardless of sector, experience, or role.

 It will introduce some foundational ideas around leadership, kindness and compassion and explore why these qualities are so important.

Access is free for five weeks from the date you join online. Paid options are available.

Deadline for initial enquiries: Wednesday 17 November 2021

The Nottingham Consultancy Challenge is a programme led by the Careers and Employability Service at the University of Nottingham (UoN). The Challenge presents an opportunity for students to undertake work experience around their studies, and for organisations to benefit from new ideas from UoN students.

Organisations can submit a project which will be assigned to a team of five students from any discipline, so projects shouldn’t require any specialist knowledge. The students will then act as consultants for the next six weeks, providing recommendations to their ‘client’. Organisations will need to commit to (virtually) meeting their teams once a week throughout.

The Challenge runs for six weeks from Monday 14 February to Friday 25 March 2022.

For more information, please visit the Nottingham Consultancy Challenge website where you can express interest in taking part.

Through our membership of NAVCA, NCVS recently learned about a new opportunity for smaller charitable organisations. Editors for Impact is a social enterprise dedicated to delivering small charitable organisations with free access to high-quality media representation. They work with small (less than £100,000 a year turnover) not for profits and charitable organisations around the world.

Do you have a clearly-defined project but perhaps need support with filming, editing, photography, a voiceover for a video, design for a website, making a logo, or blog-writing?

By partnering with Editors for Impact, you could access a network of volunteer content creators. These creators – known as Impact Editors – are volunteers who want to produce content for meaningful causes. They may be students or full-time professionals, but all are talented with creative skills looking to build their portfolio while doing so for a cause that matters to them.

To find out if you could be matched with an Impact Editor, see the Editors for Impact website and contact partnerships@editorsforimpact.org.

Let us know what you create together.

Deadline for entries: Wednesday 26 January 2022

Do you want to show your board how valuable they've been to your charity?

There is a particular focus this time on how boards have used the challenges of the pandemic to affect long-term change for their charities, and also how smaller organisations are dealing with improving impact during an unprecedented era of difficulty for charities across the UK.

The awards are free to enter and are open to all registered charities in the UK, with categories suitable for both large and small organisations. Entries are accepted online between October and January each year, with the shortlist announced in April.

The most outstanding entry in each of the five categories will receive a £5,000 cash prize (as an unrestricted grant) with runners-up receiving £1,000. The awards embrace every kind of charitable organisation and cover a range of different categories.

The Nottinghamshire Police and Crime Commissioner Caroline Henry has commissioned this online survey as she is keen to get women’s views on how they feel in public spaces. This includes what makes you feel safe or unsafe, your confidence in reporting incidents to the police, and what measures might increase your safety and feelings of safety in the city centre.

Your views will help inform the Commissioner’s bids for national funding to improve women’s safety as well as her new Plan to tackle crime in Nottinghamshire.

If you have a spare moment and feel able to, please answer the survey below. You can leave it at any time and there will be support at the end for anyone affected by the subjects raised.

Nottingham Trent University is conducting a study to find out more about the current
practice and challenges experienced by services, organisations, and community groups who offer support to promote social connection and/or reduce loneliness in Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire.

The aim of the research is to identify services and groups that are active in the local area, to explore their experiences of the Coronavirus pandemic, their support needs and requirements, and their current challenges and local needs.

This will help the Tackling Loneliness in Nottinghamshire Collaborative understand loneliness and isolation, map and support existing services, communicate loneliness and support needs to healthcare partners, and influence future decision-making within Nottinghamshire and beyond.

Register your interest in taking part before Sunday 14 November 2021

Research in Practice are partnering with the Social Care Future movement to start collecting the best evidence to support change in social care.

The evidence review will be co-authored and co-designed by people with lived experience of adult social care, and is mapped to Social Care Future's five key changes.

It will start from the principle that the debate on adult social care has been under-imagined. What would social care look like if it truly began from the wellbeing principle, as defined by people with lived experience of social care?

Read more here about the evidence review, and watch a video which encourages people with lived experience to get involved.

You can register your interest through a short online form.