IT Health Check

Flourishing is pleased to offer a new service for voluntary and community organisations, businesses and statutory organisations of all sizes. We can save you money by reviewing your use of information technology and identifying efficiencies to be achieved.

The IT Healthcheck service starts with a review of your current systems - from information management, customer service management systems, office systems, data storage etc. We then talk through your business plans to determine ways in which technology could assist you to meet your organisational goals.

The next step involves researching alternative approaches, reviewing your current contracts and identifying simple, reliable and efficient processes that will support your work. These are then presented succinctly as costed proposals for your senior management to consider. If you choose to proceed then we can manage the implementation and change over for you - drawing on our team of information technology experts.

If you want to reduce your IT bills, simplify your processes and move towards a greener business model, then get in touch - and we can arrange your IT Healthcheck.

FGM meeting in Barnet - 11am 28.11.11

Great meeting on 28th November 2011.

In fact we chose the date and time to be memorable - 11am, 28.11.11.

It was great to work with 28TooMany founder Ann-Marie Wilson and to host a meeting for front line professionals in Barnet exploring ways to eradicate FGM (Female Genital Mutilation).

Barnet Council offered us a meeting space and refreshments as part of their Safeguarding Month. We weren't sure how many would come, but in the end we had to go and get more chairs three times to accommodate the number of people who came. We had another 20 people who couldn't make the time - but wanted to be kept in touch.

Ann- Marie talked through her own journey, working in different countries, encountering women and girls who have suffered FGM. She also explained actions that are being taken in the UK and abroad. The numbers of women and girls impacted in the UK are difficult to quantify - but it most certainly does happen in Barnet and elsewhere locally.

Rita from Forward and Dorrett from Imkaan also spoke of their work - particularly in gaining commitment from local community groups, empowering women to lead on stamping out FGM. There is a great example in Bristol - and we explored parallels and lessons for elsewhere.

If you would like Ann-Marie to speak with your group then please get in touch and we will see what can be arranged.

FGM meeting in Barnet - 11am 28.11.11

Flourishing Consulting Limited are delighted to be supporting 28TooMany - an organisation lead by Ann-Marie Wilson with the aim of eradicating FGM.

As part of Barnet Council's Safeguarding Month we are delighted to be holding a meeting in their offices, to draw together professionals from different organisations to explore the scope for working together co-operatively on this issue.

Front-line professionals are welcome to join us, as well as those from voluntary and community organisations.

Contact annmarie@28toomany.org or karen@flourishing.me.uk to book your place.

The meeting takes place at 11am on 28th November 2011 - in Building 4 of the North London Business Park in Barnet.

There will be speakers from Imkaan, 28TooMany and we hope to welcome a speaker from the Home Office as well.

Social Action and Social Innovation Conference

On 14th and 15th November I attended a 2 day conference at Lambeth Palace - hosted by Faiths Forum for London.

The focus was on the role of faith groups in delivering social action projects. Speakers from around the world talked of their work - from challenging attitudes to disability amongst Arab communities in Israel, to the 2011 Hours Against Hate campaign presented by members of the US State Department.

One of the lasting thoughts for me is around the economic imperatives to understand other faiths and cultures. There is little that can be described as good about the current economic crisis - but in Italy there is some evidence that SME's are taking a broader view of the marketplace for their products and services, and actively seeking to understand ways in which they can deliver these sensitively and appropriately across different faith groups.

There were lively break out sessions in which we sought to define social action - and to explore where single faith or multi-faith responses might be most relevant. For the most part we agreed that furtherance of a religion lent itself to single faith action, and there were discussions around delivery of projects where faiths held strong views - LGBT is the most obvious area.

It was great to be able to speak about Faithbook (www.thefaithbook.co.uk) and also the Barnet Community Project's youth skatepark - as an inter-faith resource and social action project respectively. In particular, exploring more socially enterprising ways of delivering social action.

The Director for the Big Lottery Fund spoke of their role in supporting projects - and Baroness Warsi committed to looking at the criteria for the Social Action Fund, which currently excludes faith organisations.

My particular point is that giving money to a project is not sufficient. Some form of advice and support is needed to enable projects to eke the money out. Intelligent funders engage more in the development of the projects that they fund - and in some instances provide people and skills alongside money.

Overall a very good investment of time - with lots of thought provoking discussions.

Unshackling Good Neighbours

Today's All Party Parliamentary Group on Civil Society and Volunteering covered Lord Hodgson's report on Unshackling Good Neighbours. The full document can be found on the Cabinet Office website. Particularly intriguing is the list of 20 things that you can do without permission!

The report details over 600 examples under three headings:

What stops people volunteering?

What stops people giving money?

What stops charities growing?

Taking each of these in turn. The main issues around volunteering around risk of litigation, the perceived need for insurance, the CRB process and the myth that volunteering impacts on benefit claims. A couple of actions have been implemented - especially around standardising insurers approaches to insuring volunteers - and displaying posters in Job Centres to spell out that volunteering does not in fact impact on benefits.

There is a public attitude to risk which inhibits organisations. A prevailing presumption of failure ties services in knots with ever more detailed risk assessments and preventative plans. There is a need to differentiate between systemic failures and random events.

Giving is inhibited in part by local authorities attitudes to licencing eg of collections, non-standard regulations around lotteries and a need to find a way to encourage social investors who may seek a return on their money, which would then be reinvested.

Not all charities will want to grow - and where their focus is local then why press the matter. Regulatory overlap is a big inhibitor. A hospice might well be subject to 11 different regulators and servicing their needs increases back office costs. Regulators overlap eg OFSTED ask about health and safety and CRBs.

Withdrawal of cheques would have impacted on smaller charities - where two cheque signatories are required and financial controls would have been difficult. However, the decision to stop cheques has been reversed.

Commissioning approaches have also caused problems - and the costs of participating in tenders needs to be restricted and commensurate with the size of the tender. Equally monitoring arrangements need to be lighter where smaller figures are involved, and remain consistent throughout the term of the service delivery.

Paul Emery then presented a new innovation - My Community Starter - an online tool for groups providing end to end solutions to setting up community groups. The process can be completed in about an hour - at the end of which all the governance documents needed can be downloaded. There have been over 14000 unique visitors to the site to date. Zurich are behind this, though their insurance is not pushed. Even though they have a £75 insurance package providing £5m of cover for upto 50 volunteers.

A really interesting meeting - and I saw Andrew Marr in the corridor!

I am very interested in testing the My Community Starter approach for small organisations - please get in touch if this is something that you need, and we can test it together.

IT Health Check

Flourishing are exploring the development of a new service - an IT health check for your organisation.

The starting point will be a series of questions about your existing systems. This will include telecoms, data management, social media and so forth.

Then we will explore with you the ways that effective IT could enhance your organisation and assist you in achieving your objectives. This is likely to be an iterative process involving staff and volunteers, as well as discussions with your users or beneficiaries.

We will produce a costed set of recommendations - alongside potential funders to approach to achieve the changes we suggest.

Finally, we will work with you to develop funding applications, and to manage any changeovers from one system to another. This could include training for key staff if need be.

If this is of interest to you - please contact us to discuss.

Olympic Truce - an update

Here are a few notes prepared for the Olympic Steering Group in Barnet.

There are fabulous opportunities for local faith and community groups to get involved. Open up your doors to show the events on big screens - turn it into a community event, and show hospitality to the people in your area. The BBC have confirmed that they will be showing every minute of the games.

Olympic Truce

The Olympic truce was a time when conflicts would cease so that athletes could travel safely to compete in the Olympic games.

London Borough Faiths Network are suggesting that local boroughs could take the concept of the Olympic truce and use it as a banner for initiatives that bring faiths together, resolve conflicts and achieve peaceful outcomes. Rather in the manner of Inter-faith week - each borough would develop responses that work locally.

The Truce is something that LBFN members can relate to because it naturally brings religious groups and the public sector (community safety, police, youth services, domestic violence teams, schools, etc) together towards the same end.

Each nation hosting the Olympics declares the truce through its parliament. The truce is expected to run for 100 days starting on 9^th June 2012.

Activities so far in Barnet

ü Participated in LBFN meetings on the subject – including one in September with Duncan Green.

ü Briefed the Barnet Multi-faith Forum, who are now considering their activity.

ü Briefed CYPNet.

ü Met with More than Gold Director – and identified local contact.

ü Briefed the Barnet SCB – Faith and Culture sub-group

ü Briefed Lucy Somali.

Resources

Duncan Green has said that there will be a Faith 2012 Inspire pin badge and logo available to tag faith activities inspired by the Olympics. The requirement is that they must be open to the community (of all and no faith) and not evangelical. There should be a clear benefit to the community. Applications close at the end of September.

Get Set is a programme of resources for schools to pick up the Olympic theme. There are activities for all ages from 3 to 19 years, as well as fact sheets and advice for educators.

More than Gold – mobilizing churches to offer hospitality, open events screening Olympic events, schools resources etc. The community festivals model is promoted with accompanying training to deliver these effectively. The local contact for Barnet is also part of the Copthall Stadium development team. To date one of Barnet’s towns is picking this up actively. (KW in contact, and attending a More than Gold event in Watford on 19^th October 2011)

Visit Jewish London – website for visitors and athletes developed with the Jewish Volunteer Network.

Faiths Forum for London are getting involved. (KW linked to this)

Oasis Community Learning – developing a 100 days of peacemaking programme with a logo for branding local activities. Resources will be made available – and the challenge put out “what can you do?” This is part of their schools work around the Restoring Peace theme, and is endorsed by the UK government. (KW following up the link)

London Boroughs Faith Network are co-ordinating local grassroots faith responses, and disseminate information through their blog. A sub-group is due to meet with the Home Office to discuss the involvement of faith groups with Olympic activities (KW is a member of the LBFN, and part of the group to meet the Home Office)

Piece of Gold – private companies to sponsor Lego bricks to be loaded onto a trailer and taken to different locations for communities to construct

Local activities for Barnet?

Prior to the games:

- Hospitality and volunteer stewards from faith communities along torch route.

- Mill Hill School is the pretraining venue for archery and hockey.

- Barnet Multi-Faith Forum are planning an event to promote the truce concept (details to be agreed) (KW briefed them on the event and JG attended the LBFN)

During the games:

- Opening faith and community venues to show televised Olympic events

o Co-ordinate and publicise

o Existing venues with large screens and PA systems

- Schools project work, highlighting existing resources

- Commissioning summer 2012 youth activities through Futureversity, and sports activities for other age groups through the small grant and Milly Apthorp programmes

- Concerted efforts to tackle hate crime and promotion of third party reporting through faith communities

- Multi-faith prayer walks around crime hotspots in the borough

- New community safety initiatives

- Gun and knife amnesties

- Peace festivals – or theming the local community festivals around peace, using Boris’ bunting

- Support for Street Pastors work in areas of conflict

- Taster events to provide residents with the opportunity to try Olympic sports.

After the games:

Dates for regional activities open to the public

21^st September 2011 – Peace One Day – celebration at the O2 arena, London – a 365 day countdown

21^st December 2011 – POD concert in Istanbul – 9 month countdown

21^st March 2012 – POD concert in the US – 6 month countdown

2^nd – 5^th June 2012 – Queen’s Diamond Jubilee

9^th June 2012 – multi-faith celebration in Trafalgar Square, to launch 100 days of peace. Showcasing activities where GB is active, but there is more to do. The aim is to mark the beginning of the truce as part of the Olympic event. Could include:

A gun and knife amnesty

Interfaith relationships

International development

The Northern Ireland experience

21^st June 2012 – Opening of the London 2012, POD festival and Derry/Londonderry 3 month countdown

14^th - 15^th July – Interfaith walks across London supported by the The South London Interfaith Group.

21^st – 26^th July – Torch is overnight in Walthamstow, Bexley, Wandsworth, Ealing, Haringey and Westminster.

27^th July – 12^th August – Olympic Games

29^th August – 9^th September – Paralympic Games

21^st September 2012 – Peace One Day concert in the Olympic stadium, headlined by Elton John

There will be a post games, multi-faith, celebration event as the truce is handed on to Brazil for 2016.

NB:

The 40^th anniversary of the Munich 1972 tragedy will be marked during the games.

Ramadam falls from 21^st July to 20^th August 2012.

Other activities planned by London Boroughs

St Johns church in Waterloo is reflecting on aspects of war as the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo is not far off. In 2012 the focus is on war and peace. From 13^th to 17^th July there will be a festival with a youth slant to it, including exhibitions, debates and a commissioned piece of music drawing on texts from different faiths on the subject of peace.

The East London Mosque is developing a programme to challenge Islamaphobia in sport, and also knife crime.

Restoredrelationships are a Christian organisation addressing domestic violence, and plan to raise the profile of this issue under the Olympic truce banner.

Sikhs in the City will have multi-faith teams running in relay across all boroughs in the first and second weeks of January 2012 – finishing in Stratford at the Olympic stadium. They are a worldwide group, organizing multi-faith relay races for men and women.

The Lambeth Mediation Service are deploying their Peace Ambassadors, recently involved in post riot facilitated dialogue.

Greenwich multi-faith forum and local involvement network (LINk) have merged in response to cuts in funding. So their focus is on health and wellbeing across the faiths, with a sports focus for 2012.

Nominated torchbearers

Approx 30 torchbearers crossing Barnet, perhaps 8 will be local residents

Mark Healey – Green Man Community Centre, East Finchley – also LGBT work

Sally Dryden – St Barnabas Church, Woodside Park – community work