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Welcome to the latest edition of the Halton & St Helens Voluntary and Community Action E-Bulletin...

"Who can help me?" Healthwatch St Helens Listening Event - 24th October

Healthwatch St Helens is holding a series of listening events under the heading of: "Who can help me?" The first of the events is focuses on: "What services can I get from my Pharmacy?" and is being held on Thursday 24th October at the Beacon Building, 2pm to 4pm with light refreshments available. At this event you can find out what services your pharmacy can offer, ask questions and feedback your views and experiences of using a pharmacy...

New Start Up Workshop - 6th November, 2019 

Information workshop for anyone thinking about starting a new community group, CIC, charity. This 2 hour workshop will help anyone thinking about starting up a new community group, charity or community business such as a CIC. We will explore the various legal structures, governing documents, financial requirements, essential policies and possible next steps...

Developing a Fundraising Strategy - 25th November

Halton & St Helens VCA are proud to work in partnership with the External Funding Team at Halton Borough Council and are please to facilitate the opportunity for them to deliver this extreamly useful course for our members. This course will help you to develop the basic elements or your fundraising strategy, including: organisational analysis, developing a clear case for support, identifying & targeting funders, presenting  & evaluating your strategy. Complements Business Plan session. This course is FREE for VCA Members that are  voluntary and community organisation based in HALTON, for groups outside this area there will be a £50 charge which includes membership to VCA...

Community Development Officer

Do you want to be part of one of the largest and most ambitious Community Forest programmes in the UK?  Are you looking for a challenging and rewarding career that will help make a lasting difference to local communities, to the economy and to the environment? The Mersey Forest is the largest of England’s Community Forests covering over 500 square miles on Merseyside and North Cheshire.  Cheshire West and Chester Council are looking for an individual who can help to deliver the ambitious plans to fully engage local communities in The Mersey Forest, to connect people to nature and deliver the aspirations for communities set out in The Mersey Forest Plan. You will bring enthusiasm, inspiration, innovation and significant practical knowledge to help deliver The Forest vision...

Tea, Tech And Toast - Could Your Organisation Host A Digital Drop-In?

Here at Halton & St Helens VCA we're working alongside the Include-It Mersey Project to establish digital drop in sessions at the heart of our communities.  Following a successful pilot with St Helens Carers, we would like to roll out some more Tea, Tech and Toast drop-in sessions uilising the skills of our Volunteer Digital Champions in both Halton and St Helens. Establishing a drop-in session where people already meet has been really successful and has helped to develop good relationships - where confidence has grown in finding out more about how to use smartphones, tablets or laptops and if there is a need for more formal training, our volunteers can signpost to our partners...

Daneway Foundation

The Daneway Foundation aims to improve the lives of young people aged between 11 and 25 years of age. It wishes to fund projects that support socially disadvantaged young people. It wishes to give them opportunities to improve their life chances and to become active and engaged citizens in their own communities. Particular support will be given to projects that support employability or encourage the physical health and well-being of young people, and the panel are keen to see projects that result in clear tangible outcomes such as qualifications. In addition, the panel would like applicants to be clear about any previous experience in delivering similar work and the achievements this work has resulted in...

Liverpool City Region Impact Fund – Wave 2

If you’re running a social enterprise or charity that makes an economic and social impact in the Liverpool City Region, the Liverpool City Region Impact Fund (LCRIF) may be a good fit for your organisation. The fund offers unsecured loans of between £150K- £250K; repayment terms up to 10 years; competitive interest rates, ranging from 3-8%, based on risk and affordability; no hidden fees. The fund is now looking to make its second wave of 2 or 3 local investments for 2019-2023...

Health & Social Care Strategy For Cheshire And  Merseyside: Halton & St Helens Consultation With The VCFSE Sector - 31st October

Halton & St Helens VCA are inviting groups & organisations in Halton & St Helens to attend this event, to help shape the Cheshire & Merseyside Health and Care Partnership 5 year strategic plan. The Cheshire and Merseyside Health and Care Partnership has a responsibility to support the 2.5 million residents that live in this vast area. With a universal goal to reduce health inequalities within the Cheshire and Merseyside area, we need a robust and effective strategy that can support this goal. As we roll out phase one of the draft 5 Year Strategic Plan, we need your voice and feedback in shaping the outlook of this strategy for the VCFSE sector. Please join us for an important session where we will inform you of the core themes in further detail and allow you to voice your thoughts on the impact this strategy will have in our local community...

Exciting Job Opportunities at Merseyside Youth Association

MYA employs over 50 staff across a range of jobs within youth work, counselling, training, grounds maintenance and support services. They currently have 4 new job vacancies with closing dates varying between the 18th and 21st October...

St Helens and District Diabetes Meeting for November 2019

The next meeting of the St Helens & District Group of Diabetes UK will be on Wednesday 6th November 2019 at 7.30pm in St Helens United Reformed Church. The speaker will be Catherine Gallagher, who will be giving a talk on "The role of the humble carbohydrate in diabetes". Catherine is a Diabetes Dietitian from the Specialist Diabetes Unit in St Helens Hospital, she has not spoken at the meetings before. Anyone with an interest in diabetes is welcome to attend, admission is free and refreshments are available after the meeting. They also have a large selection of diabetes leaflets available and would particularly like to welcome anyone who has been recently diagnosed with diabetes and has not been to a meeting before...

Funding Bulletins from Halton Borough Council – October

Our colleagues from Halton Borough Council’s External Funding Team have prepared some Funding Bulletins containing valuable information for voluntary organisations looking for grants to get projects off the ground. The Monthly funding bulletins offering information on funding opportunities in the following areas Arts, Community & Voluntary, Environment & Heritage, European, Faith, Health, Schools, Sports and Youth...

Haydock Male Voice Choir

Haydock Male Voice Choir are proud to announce a joint concert featuring a rich combined singing heritage of over 217 years with guests including the renowned Dunvant Male Voice Choir from Swansea, South Wales on Saturday 2nd November 2019 in St Helens Town Hall at 7.30 pm....

Join the Association of Chairs Beacon Programme

Calling Chairs / Vice Chairs of smaller charities (with an income under £1m) in England. Join the Association of Chairs Beacon Programme. The programme offers low-cost workshops in nine locations in England; the unique opportunity to meet and learn from other Chairs and Vice Chairs of smaller charities; free online resources and webinars...

LandAid's Free Property Advice Programme Is Here To Help

Do you need help managing and maintaining your buildings? If you are a not-for profit organisation lacking the time, expertise and experience needed to manage, maintain and improve your buildings, LandAid's Free Property Advice programme is here to help. LandAid, the property industry charity, arranges for skilled property professionals from their network of supporters to give free property expertise to UK not-for profit organisations supporting disadvantaged young people, families and communities, including those experiencing homelessness...

Swing 'n' the Blues Production - Victoria Music

Come and see Victoria Music new show Swing 'n' the Blues on Monday 4th November, 7.30pm at the Brindley Theatre, Runcorn.  This production is to raise funds for Victoria Music's twice weekly wellbeing sessions and the free kids workshops next year so all support would be appreciated.  Tickets are available on the Brindley website...

VCA Membership 

Halton and St Helens VCA are pleased to welcome our new and re-registered affiliated, non-affiliated and associate members.  We all look forward to working with you.

If you'd like to find out about your membership status, click on the link below which will take you to our current list of Affiliated and Associate members, or call Lynne Daffern or Debbie Morris on 01928 592405 / 01744 457100  for more information. 

https://www.haltonsthelensvca.org.uk/vca-membership-list

Don't Forget...

Introduction to Developing a Business Plan

While the language of business can seem at odds with the aims of voluntary organisations, you still need to plan for the future to get things done, and to account to your members, and to funders and the public as you carry out your activities. This full day session will take you through the steps you will need to take to enable your organisation to gather the information and data needed to create a business plan...

VCSE Connect

Information about the voluntary, community, charitable sector still remains one of the key issues raised by professionals and clinicians when you ask the question “What could the voluntary sector do?” or “How can I refer this person to something more appropriate?”

As the gateway into the sector, Halton & St Helens VCA holds lots of information and data about local voluntary action.  We have produced that in great detail, in “Here to Help”, provided a search facility on our website, share information with key organisations and have many different ways of sharing what groups do, but still people say they don’t know what groups exist, what they do and how they get to them or refer to them.  So Halton & St Helens VCA has been working on an extension to our database which will display information about groups in an easy format, tell you what they do and when, allow clinicians and other key professionals to log-in directly and make a referral directly to the group (as long as they have agreed to receive referrals).  This means for the first time there will be a single place where referrals to the local voluntary and community sector can be made.

If you would like your organisation to be included in the VCSE Connect directory...

Please feel free to forward this email onto any other organisations/individuals who you feel would be interested. Apologies if you receive this email more than once.

If you have any comments you would like to tell us about this e-bulletin, please send an email to ldaffern@haltonsthelensvca.org.uk or if you have any news/events you would like us to publicise, please complete our News/Events webform: https://www.haltonsthelensvca.org.uk/vca-newsevents-template

Halton and St Helens Voluntary and Community Action