Please do not miss your opportunity to have your say about Nottingham City Council's funding for the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS). It is a short survey and worth the time as this type of review has not been undertaken for a number of years.  Despite the challenges facing the city council there is a recognition of the critical role the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) plays in supporting some of Nottingham's most vulnerable residents.

The Council is undertaking a review looking at how it supports the VCS to deliver services within communities across Nottingham. The review will enable recommendations on key priorities for funding and the most appropriate model that should be supported via a grant process.

As a VCS partner, we are seeking your views and input. We would like you to identify what you consider to be key priorities going forward, where the gaps in services are that could be supported by the VCS and where the VCS could enjoy a bigger role if funded to do so. We would also like you to consider which model or process of grant making you feel could best deliver this, and what other opportunities are available that could be joined up to deliver a better and stronger offer for citizens by the VCS if funded.

We are asking all partners interested in this delivery to complete the survey to help frame options for how the Council funds the VCS in 2023.

The closing date for this survey is 9am Monday 11 July 2022

Closes Thursday 14 July 2022

This scheme supports places of worship and associated faith centres vulnerable to hate crimes to install security measures for free

Tell MAMA can help Muslim faith groups with their application if needed

Funding awards of up to £5,000 to community groups who help transform lives and Make Notts Safe.

The Community Chest is aimed at third sector community-based organisations, and parish councils, to support projects that help meet the Police and Crime Commissioner’s priorities in the Make Notts Safe Plan. 

These priorities are: Preventing crime and protecting people from harm; responding efficiently and effectively to local needs; and supporting victims, survivors, witnesses and communities.

Deadline for applications is 12pm Friday 5 August 2022

Contact Dave on 07564 040767 or davet@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

One of the things that I try to drum into new Leaders of Volunteers is the importance of not turning volunteers into workers or employees by paying them. The legal position is that the only money volunteers can get is expenses to cover what it costs them to volunteer. This rule comes from both tax and benefits legislation.

I also know that many volunteers never claim a penny in expenses and that some organisations don’t offer expenses. Neither of these points appear to affect the commitment of volunteers.

So why am I even writing about giving volunteers any kind of reward?

Free Training for Leaders of Volunteers

Free training up to the value of £80 is being offered to Leaders of Volunteers as part of the Community Champions programme.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been sharing information about how the Community Champions Project could offer your existing volunteers new skills and new experiences.  New dates are now being planned for three separate sessions for volunteers and these will be in our next e-bulletin.

• An induction to Volunteering as a Community Champion.
• Having Difficult Conversations.
• Understanding and Communicating Health Messages

In addition, there is a small amount of funding available to support your costs associated with being part of this programme. This funding could be used for additional volunteer or staff expenses, cost of backfilling staff time or for targeted training or publicity materials.

In addition, we are now able to offer free places on any of our online Leaders of Volunteers training sessions for organisations whose volunteers are participating in the Community Champions programme. These sessions include:

• Essentials of Volunteer Management.
• Addressing the Barriers to Volunteering.
• Dealing with Conflict in your Volunteer Programme.
• Introduction to Volunteers and the Law. 
• Writing Opportunities to Attract Volunteers.
• How to be a Better Leader of Volunteers

Find out more by getting in touch with  communitychampions@nottinghamcvs.co.uk

Tuesday 5 July 2022 from 10am to 12 noon
Online via Zoom

This is your final call to register your place at the Leaders of Volunteers Network (LoVN) meeting. There will be a presentation from Emily Lewis, Communications Officer National Association for Community and Voluntary Action (NAVCA). Other topics will be: Nottingham Volunteer Strategy, Community Champions, and the latest national and local volunteering news.

Green social prescribing is a way of connecting people to nature-based activities and green groups, projects and schemes in their local community for support with health and wellbeing. Often this will be through a referral from a Link Worker based at a GP practice or another primary care professional.

Our scheme in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire, called GreenSpace, is one of seven government Green Social Prescribing Test and Learn sites. It's all about improving people’s mental health. Green providers, social prescribers, voluntary organisations and community initiatives will help connect many more people with nature-based activities, helping everyone to feel better.

We are happy to bring you even more news from the Green Space project.

The bulletin shares news and information about the project and the organisations working with us to develop green social prescribing across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

You can view it in your web browser now. If you would like to receive future issues directly to your inbox, please email greenspace@nottinghamcvs.co.uk with a request to be added to the mailing list.

If you made a previous request to be added to the mailing list and you're not receiving the bulletin directly, don't forget to check in your Junk folder. Even trusted and expected emails can go there sometimes.

Tuesday 12 July 2022

12.45pm-2.15pm online

Free

The event is an online webinar taking place on Tuesday 12th July between 12:45pm and 2:15pm examining and exploring the regional analysis of the Mental Health Foundation’s ‘Coronavirus: Mental Health in the Pandemic’ study. The webinar will present regional data directly relevant to East Midlands and offer insights into the groups in the East Midlands that have been most adversely affected during the pandemic. The analysis will provide data on population groups such as young people, older people, people with long-term conditions and single parents, the emotions they experienced (including hopelessness), how they coped, their worries and how they have felt about the lifting of restrictions. It will include differences in gender and socio-economic status.

There will be presentation of the data by MHF Director for England and Wales, Dr Antonis Kousoulis and Tine Van Bortel, Professor of Global Health & Wellbeing at De Montfort University Leicester. This will be followed by a public health expert discussing the findings and a wider discussion and detailed question and answer session. An agenda for the event will be shared in a few weeks. Any RSVPs or questions should be directed to mhough@mentalhealth.org.uk.

NSPCC showcase their new and free services Thursday 30 June 2022

NSPCC Midlands Hub 1 Cranmer Street, Nottingham, NG3 4GH

Book a slot 10am-12.30pm or 2.30pm-2.30pm

Email Midlandshubadmin@nspcc.org.uk or ring 0115 9605481

The services that NSPCC Midlands Hub offers to groups who work with Children and Young people and their families that are delivered in Nottingham are:

• InCtrl – a group work programme to work with children and young people to prevent sexual abuse online
• PiM (Pregnancy in Mind) a perinatal mental health service (group work) for parents who are at risk of mild to moderate anxiety or depression
• DART (domestic abuse – recovering together) a group work programme to help children overcome the adverse effects of domestic abuse and improve parent-child relationships
• LtFi (Letting the Future in) therapeutic service for children who have been sexually abused (this will start in the future as staff are preparing for training)

For more information, please contact the team on midlandshubadmin@nspcc.org.uk

Wednesday 6 July 2022, 10.30am to 12.45pm

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

Tuesday 26 July 2022, 10.30am to 12.45pm

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

Wednesday 3 August 2022, 10.30am to 12.45pm

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

Cost: £25 per participant

Wednesday 24 August 2022, 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

Wednesday 7 September 2022, 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

Wednesday 27 July 2022, 10am to 12.15am

A new interactive hands-on workshop for organisations and community groups who want to practice their skills and would welcome constructive feedback to further develop their skills in writing successful funding applications.
Cost: £20 per participant

Tuesday 11 October 2022 10:30am to 12:30pm

Do you manage a space, office or building? This new two-hour online session will take your Fire Wardens and/or Fire Marshal through the basics. As a result, they will be better equipped to carry out these very important roles.

Cost: £20 per participant

Tuesday 13 September 2022, 11am to 1pm

This two-hour online session is intended for trustees who have completed our 'Being a Trustee' course, who want to further develop their involvement and awareness of trustee duties and improve their personal skill set.

Cost: £20 per participant

Wednesday 14 September 2022, 6pm to 8pm

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

Tuesday 11 October 2022 6:00pm to 8:00pm

This new two-hour online session will explain the basics of health and safety, then take you through the process of carrying out a risk assessment in an organisational environment.

Cost: £20 per participant

Wednesday 21 September, 2022 10:00am to 11:15 am

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

Thursday 13 October 2022, 6pm to 7pm

In this one-hour online session, we will identify some of the barriers that potential volunteers face to becoming involved in your organisation and share ideas to remove these barriers.

Cost: £10 per participant

Tuesday 15 November 2022 10:00am to 11:00 am

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

Wednesday 5 October 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

Wednesday 8 February 2023, 10am to 12 noon

For some time, we’ve been asked about training that goes beyond the basics of managing and supporting volunteers. In this new two-hour online session, we’ll explore some of the real-life issues that you are facing.

Cost: £20 per participant

Thursday 24 November 2022, 10am to 12pm

A two-hour online course 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

Tuesday 12 July 2022, 10am to 11am

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

Cost: £10 per participant

The 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 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.

An opportunity has arisen to join the NCVS team as our new Practice Development Unit (PDU) Lead.

We are looking for a passionate and motivated individual that can develop and grow the PDU, which we have hosted in partnership with Opportunity Nottingham since 2017 and will now be delivering with the new Changing Futures programme.

This is an exciting opportunity to take the PDU to the next level, increasing cross sector partnerships to influence system change and understanding how to embed the PDU as the learning tool and platform for the local system in the future.

The closing date for this vacancy is 12 noon on Monday 4 July 2022

All of our upcoming events are currently full. Keep watching this space for new events being announced.

In the meantime, you might be interested in one of our Communities of Practice (CoP). Our CoPs are informal forums for social learning, designed to facilitate discussion and sharing of experience and good practice between peers. The groups meet on a quarterly basis and welcome professionals, volunteers and people with lived experience of multiple disadvantage and using support services.

Two of our CoPs currently have spaces available:

Co-production CoP

This CoP provides a forum for professionals and volunteers with a passion for, and commitment to, collaborating effectively with the people they support and empowering them to get the most out of their involvement.

Next meeting dates: Wednesday 21 September, 10am to 12noon

Gender Responsive Services CoP

This CoP provides a forum for professionals and volunteers, particularly those working within mixed gender services, who have a commitment to working more effectively to respond to gender differences in experiences of multiple disadvantage and are interested in developing and applying gender responsive approaches.

Next meeting dates: Thursday 14 July and 13 October, 10am to 12noon

To find out more or join these groups, please email enquiries@pdunottingham.org

As part of Business in the Community’s Skills Exchange - they are delivering a UK wide series of free training webinars for community organisations across key business skills, delivered by business. Please note these courses are not just for local organisations. 

The D2N2 Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has begun recruitment for a new Inclusion board member. They are seeking to appoint a new representative from the Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise Sectors to ensure that the views of civil society continue to be reflected within the LEP’s decision making.

Deadline 12 noon on Friday 1 July 2022

This study of voluntary and community organisations, social enterprises, cooperatives, societies and clubs (the 'third sector' or 'VCSE sector') started in 2010.  

A lot has happened since they last did the survey in 2019.  So it's time to find out what has changed in the last three years. 

Whether your organisation or group is big or small, flourishing or struggling - or just carrying on more or less as normal - they need to hear from you.

It's interesting and only takes about 10 minutes to do.

They build a picture of how organisations and groups work and what they achieve. This helps funders make good decisions on how to invest in the sector.

Consultation open 30 May 2022 to 22 August 2022

It is likely that some of the people the voluntary sector supports are living in challenging conditions. Please be sure they have an opportunity to have their say on the proposal for a Selective Licensing Scheme for private landlords in Nottingham.