Annual Conference 2009

Building on Skills, Acting with Confidence, Getting Results

Dear Colleague,

The main aim of our conference 'Building on Skills, Acting with Confidence, Getting Results' was to afford delegates opportunities to diversify their skills base and to learn more about areas which can protect their organisation through these difficult financial times.

However it was also an opportunity to gather some feedback from delegates not only about the conference and the workshops, but also about the value placed on the services provided by Community Links Bromley.

This will help us in planning our services and ensure we are tailoring the right services to the level of need identified by our members.

[l-r] Photo of Jean Levy, Chair, Cllr Carr, Leader of the Council and Eithne Rynne,Director

We asked delegates to tell us about the services they currently use from CLB and asked for information on services that you would like to see CLB deliver.

I was pleased to note that 61 percent of those present have accessed our regular e-news bulletin or e-alerts and of those who haven’t accessed it, only a very small percentage [3] felt they would not have a need to.

Similarly 45 percent of those surveyed about their involvement in forums and partnership work have indicated that they would like to increase their participation and we can support groups to do this through the work of our Policy and Networks Officer.

Some very rewarding comments were made by those who have attended the Volunteer Co-ordinators’ Forum such as, ‘Extremely useful and enjoyable’ and ‘Good to meet other people and discuss similar situations.’ We were surprised to note that only 35 percent of respondents have accessed the services provided by the Volunteer Centre, although over 40 percent indicated that it is an important service to their organisation. The Volunteer Centre Manager will be looking at ways of engaging those volunteer involving organisations not yet accessing these services.

From the responses of the delegates completing the interactive ICT survey on the day, we found out that more than one in three do not have broadband. This is extremely worrying as so much information is sent or requested through IT. This has sparked an internal debate as to what we can do to support those groups with IT needs.

With over 100 delegates present, including a significant number of colleagues from the statutory sector, I feel we have gained valuable insight into where we as a sector stand at this moment in time and what direction we need to take to move forward to sustain this very varied and vibrant voluntary sector in our borough.

We are always willing to learn more about how we can improve our services. If you have not had the opportunity to tell us what services you might like from CLB please let us know.

Our Impact Report, which covers the services we delivered during 08/09 is available to you to download now from the website so you can see the very varied support and advice on offer to members. A hard copy will be sent to all members shortly.

I was delighted with delegate’s comments regarding the organisation and co-ordination of our conference. 87 percent said they hoped we would co-ordinate a similar event and over 80 percent felt the conference was either ‘good’ or ‘very good’. You can read more of these comments on the delegate's feedback page.

I would like to commend the CLB staff team for their efforts in ensuring that the conference was as successful as it turned out to be. I’m sure you will appreciate how much “behind the scenes” planning work that has to be done.

And finally many thanks to all who attended on the day and who gave willingly of their time to fill out our evaluation forms.

With warm regards,

Eithne

Eithne Rynne,
CLB Director

Download the Impact Report 08/09 [713 kb]

Read comments on the conference by visiting the delegate's feedback page.

For those who could not make the event, I’m very pleased that we captured some of the workshops on video - available on You Tube in the near future.

All the speaker support presentations are already on the website for your reference, as is a collection of photos taken on the day.

Page updated: 14 October 2009