Election of representatives to county-wide partnership groups.

Role Description for VCS Representatives
Nomination Form

Nominations are sought to represent the voluntary and community sector on county- wide partnership groups. Nominations can come from staff or trustees working for voluntary and community organisations in West Sussex, seconded by the organisation for which they are a trustee or employee. Please note that it is the organisation that is putting forward the nomination.

The partnership groups bring together organisations to tackle the issues that matter most to local communities. Made up of the County Council, Borough and District Councils together with other statutory agencies, the private sector, and voluntary and community sector groups across the county the partnership groups constitute the decision making forums to develop strategies to bring about change.

There are currently seven partnerships operating across a variety of strategic subject areas there are two VCS places on each, they are;

Public Service Board
Health and Wellbeing Partnership
The Children’s Trust Board
The Economic Skills and Enterprise Board
The West Sussex Sustainable Community Safety Partnership Board
Environment and Climate Change Board
Joint Housing Delivery Board
In addition there are two places on the overarching West Sussex Co-operative, which has a strategic overview of the work of all of the above thematic partnership groups.

There are two VCS places on each of the partnership groups and nominations are sought from trustees or staff from VCS organisations in West Sussex to stand for election to act as VCS representatives. One elected representative will be sought from the north of the county and one from the south of the county. Each organisation will have one vote in their respective constituency.

The northern constituency will be made up of the following Districts and Boroughs, Mid Sussex, Crawley, and Horsham, whilst the South will be, Adur, Arun, Worthing and Chichester. Each constituency will elect one ‘representative’ for each of the thematic partnership groups, thus there will be two VCS ‘representatives’ on each of the thematic partnerships. Similarly there will be the election of one representative from each of the constituencies for the overarching body, the West Sussex Co-operative.

Elections for these positions will take place during the third week of February 2011.

Nominations for each of the thematic partnerships and the West Sussex Co-operative should be completed and returned on the attached form by 16th January 2011.

We apologise for the very short timescales for this nomination process but the need to get VCS representation onto these partnership boards is urgent given the pivotal role they will play in determining the future organisation of services across West Sussex.

This election will be conducted as an electronic process only.
All nominations must be emailed to: safder.mohammed@volg.org.uk

[Read this story on the Worthing CVS website]

End of EESI – Support for groups will continue
Be assured that even though EESI* is coming to an end, Worthing CVS will continue to help voluntary, community and social enterprise groups with their development and growth. From January 2011 if you are seeking assistance with your idea, identifying funding sources, planning, training or local networking please contact our main office between 9.30am – 2.00pm on 01903 528620 and speak with Sophie Rider or Julia Carrette. Since 2004 around 400 Worthing voluntary, community and social enterprise groups have been helped by the EESI Project and in excess of £300,000 has been levered in to help them develop their voluntary and community activities here. Now the EESI Project is coming to an end in December 2010 having been funded over 6 years by Single Regeneration Budget, Capacity Builders and the Big Lottery. We are sorry to see this halting of the project which started as an Arun & Worthing service to now covering the whole county, but we are pleased to have been able to support the development of voluntary organisations. We are committed to working with colleagues in other CVS’ in the county to secure further support for a ‘daughter of EESI’ and will keep everyone posted as to our progress with this but do contact us if you need help. * EESI= Effective Efficient Supported Independent (voluntary sector) [Read this story on the Worthing CVS website]

Mental Wellbeing in the Workplace Workshop

This FREE one day workshop focusses on raising awareness about mental health and wellbeing, challenging some of the myths and misconceptions around mental health and creating a good understanding of mental wellbeing issues.
Mind are running these courses in January and there are a choice of dates available:

9.30am – 4.30pm 14 January 2011
&
9.30am-4.30pm18 January 2011

For more information please contact Gemma Davis at Mind on 01903 603092 or email gemma.davis@worthingmind.co.uk

[Read this story on the Worthing CVS website]

Transitions Fund: are you eligible?
The Cabinet Office has launched a £100million Transition Fund to help charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises who deliver public services that are affected by public spending cuts to make necessary adjustments so that they can continue to play an important part in public service reform and the Big Society Agenda. This will be of value to groups whose reliance on income from the public purse is greater than from elsewhere. As the focus is on public services the fund is primarily aimed at front-line organisations.The Transition Fund will help organisations to be more resilient, agile and able to take opportunities presented by a changing funding environment.The Office for Civil Society has appointed BIG Fund (non-Lottery funding operation of the Big Lottery Fund) to administer the fund. There will be briefing events in London on 13 and 14 December for civil society organisations which meet the eligibility criteria and are interested in applying to the Transition Fund.The eligibility criteria and full details of the programme, including how to register for the briefing events, are available at www.biglotteryfund.org.uk/transitionfund [Read this story on the Worthing CVS website]

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