In this issue

 News

Create Café now at Café Nero

The Virtual world of DE – The blog and the chat – forum news

St Helens Festival update

GEL together Project

 Showcase                Take a look at some of the fantastic work we have been sent

 Opportunities          Urgently required – De-Installers for the Anthony Gormley Exhibit

                       We need writers!!!

 Events                     Beading Wonderful workshop – Your last chance to book

Newsletter august-2008

Funding of £30m is being made available to third-sector organisations whose work supports disadvantaged and vulnerable young people in finding their pathway to success. The Youth Sector Development Fund (YSDF) will help organisations to grow their capacity, support them to compete for local contracts and become fully sustainable.

Applications are welcome from organisations which provide services to society’s most vulnerable young people, and particularly those whose work has a focus on preventing young people from committing crime, or becoming involved in anti-social behaviour, and those that, through the provision of positive activities, provide engaging and constructive alternatives for our young people.

For details and application packs : http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/resources-and-practice/TP00046/ 

The YSDF Managing Body is running three workshops to provide information to potential applicants on the YSDF summer bidding round.

The workshops will cover:

• The aims and objectives of the YSDF
• What makes a good application
• Requirements of projects funded through YSDF
• How to apply and application timetable

Each workshop will last half a day and will be repeated in the morning and afternoon on the following dates:

• Monday 18 August Birmingham
• Tuesday 19 August Manchester
• Thursday 21 August London

To book your place, go to http://ysdf.ecotec.com/form.asp 

Community Foundation for Merseyside are pleased to announce a new three-year grants programme for small, grass-roots community and voluntary groups with an annual turnover of less than £20,000 in Sefton, Knowsley, Halton, St Helens and Wirral.  Your local CVS is available to support your group in making an application (see contact details below).

Purpose:
This grants programme is aimed at sustaining and developing small, grass-roots organisations with an annual turnover of less than £20,000 who have been active in their local community since at least December 2006.

Grassroots Grants can be used for anything that increases or develops the capacity of small voluntary and community groups, enabling them to continue or expand their work including advocacy, community voice and service provision for local people.

Projects should aim to meet local priorities, in particular those that have been agreed within Local Area Agreement targets for each borough.  Speak to your local advice agency (see contact details below) for support on this.

Examples of what can be funded are: -

• The purchase of equipment
• The costs of putting on a local event or workshop
• Staff costs to enable the employment of sessional workers
• Training for volunteers
• Activities that meet an identified need in the local community
• Contribution to rent costs related to activities/service delivery

In order to be eligible for a Grassroots Grant, groups must:

• be a not-for-profit voluntary or community group, active in their local community for not less than 12 months prior to 31 December 2007
• have an evidenced income of less than £20,000 per annum, taken as an average turnover for the last three financial years (or over the life of the group if it is less than three years old), and net of any grants received through the Grassroots Grants programme 
• be volunteer led (i.e. with largely volunteer based output) 
• be connected with and/or meeting the needs of the local community 
• have a governing document that has as a minimum the name, aim/purpose, objects, a dissolution clause for the organisation, a list of Trustees/Committee members, and Trustees’/Committee members’ signatures

Area: this scheme covers St. Helens, Sefton, Wirral, Halton, Knowsley.  A similar fund has been established for Liverpool, though this is managed by Liverpool CVS (www.lcvs.org.uk, 0151 236 7728)

Grant Range: £5,000 max. – organisations can only receive this amount within the three year programme – it could, however, be broken over a number of small grants (e.g. £1,000, £2,000 and £2,000 grants).

Overall Budget: £1,547,721.78

How to Apply: Download application pack from links below.  Alternatively, in the short term, you can obtain an application pack from the Community Foundation for Merseyside by contacting them direct (see details below).  A downloadable application pack will soon be available on their website (www.cfmerseyside.org.uk).  Details of local support agencies that can advise on applying to the Grass Roots Fund are outlined below.

Application Form: www.mfip.org.uk/docs2/grassrootsapplicationform.doc
Guidelines: www.mfip.org.uk/docs2/grassrootsguidelines.pdf

Channel 4 is scouring the country for the UK’s most exciting young creative talent for the 4Talent Awards 2008. Categories include:

• Short Documentary (screen);
• Dramatic Writing (stage and screen);
• Dramatic Performance (stage, film and TV);
• Directing (film and TV);
• Comedy Writing (stage, film and TV);
• Comedy Performance (stage, film and TV);
• Music;
• Animation;
• Photography, and several more.

All entrants must be under 30 on 31 December 2008 and both your completed online form and any posted supporting materials must be received by 5pm on Friday 29 August 2008.

To find out more go to www.4talentmagazine.com/awards.

Original source: www.merseysideacme.com

VCF sector technophobia is alive and well

We are now well into the twenty first century and we can’t seem to make a slice of toast without programming the microchips in the toaster, yet I am constantly dismayed by the number of community groups out there who you are still unable to contact by email or through other messaging technology.  We do go out into the community and visit venues, centres and join in with events, however we do have a ‘virtual’ side to our business, but trying to engage with other groups this way is proving to be very difficult.

Where we are based in St Helens, Merseyside there are 1500 people who are housebound for health reasons, (and they’re just the one’s we know about!) – that’s the size of small village!!!!  Many of these people are only connected to the world through virtual means – or could be connected.  I feel that VCF should be looking much more at the way technology can assist them to engage with these hardest to reach of the ‘hard to reach’ groups in our society.

From my day job in the third sector I know that over the last ten years, millions of pounds worth of technology, have been invested into the community…so why is no-one using it?  You could say that it is because people don’t know how to use it…but there are opportunities to learn.  I have witnessed too many IT course places be cancelled or be left unused. – this morning I heard of a computer suite being shut down because of lack of take up!  So this leaves me with only one conclusion the VCF sector, at grass roots level, is still stuck in a time before the 1980’s and its trustees are still shortsighted when it comes to the benefits of technology to the sector itself and to the service users.

Maybe funders should take note and fund technology to service users only, then once the service users begin to demand products and services ‘on-line’ then the sector will have to begin to use it…?

As a fan of the Scouse fruity farm animal I had to post this…
A Superlambanana originally captured by creative consultancy Uniform and caged on Arthouse Square for all to see and ponder, has managed the unthinkable and escaped.

A security check at 8am on Wednesday 23rd July revealed that the animal had forced the steel bars open and sneaked gingerly out of the space while no-one was looking. It is not known why the animal wanted to escape, having previously played up to the crowds that have been to see her. No sightings have been made as of yet however the Uniform team is keen to make sure the animal is located ASAP for her own safety as well as others.

Posters and flyers to aid a quick recapture will be distributed throughout the city over the next two days. Anyone with any information on The Great Superlambanana is requested to advise us via The Great Superlambanana blog at http://thegreatsuperlambanana.typepad.com.

Source:  http://www.merseysideacme.com/displaynews.asp?item=1286

I have been summarily told off for being far to…impersonal…let’s say, with my blog posts, so this is me being me, and this will be a sort of journal on the life of a chief officer and of a new creative social enterprise. 

As with any new enterprise, social or otherwise, the main concern is money and when you don’t have much to play with you become quite resourceful and become highly creative in the way that you recyle and use things.  However, the crux has come when on my desk yesterday morning, were two empty boxes with a note on it from one of the board saying, “Free storage facilities”, which tickled me…it makes me wonder what next…a pen…free printer…maybe?