Is it too late to say “Happy New Year”? I think it probably is, so instead I will just say “Hi! And welcome to our first newsletter of 2023”.
I tend not to make New Year Resolutions, choosing to believe that if something needs doing, it probably needs doing no matter what the calendar date. To be honest, most of my previous resolutions have not exactly been stellar successes. I’ve probably left it a bit late to become a pirate astronaut (me, aged 10) or a blacksmith (me, aged 40-something). However, I do have some professional aspirations for 2023 you might be interested in. One of these is for us at Surrey Community Action to do our part to alleviate at least some of the cost-of-living pressures facing so many people and organisations at the moment. Fortunately, there are two things we can do – but only with your help.
The first is to take a few minutes out of your day to fill in our cost-of-living survey. Our last report, all the way back in August of last year, was used by colleagues across Surrey to help plan how statutory bodies and others could respond to pressures facing charities and community groups. I’m confident that refreshing the research will give us new insights into the crisis and its longer-term impact and will again help formulate a response. I’d also be quite curious as to whether the small number of optimistic respondents who expected it all to blow over by Christmas are feeling quite so glass-half-full in the new year. I kinda hope they are – we need a little optimism in the world right now.
The second way you can help is by pointing people who might be interested in working on our Warmth Matters project in our direction. For the last four years, we have supported hundreds of people will energy advice, financial advice, access to emergency funding and a whole host more. Thanks to some amazing support from Surrey County Council we are now looking for two people to help us deliver the Warmth Matter project for another year (hopefully more!). These roles are helping at a very grass roots level and making a significant difference to people’s lives and how they weather the current crisis.
I suspect 2023 is going to be just as challenging in its own way as 2020, 2021 and 2022 were, but I wish you every success for the year ahead and will choose to be a bit optimistic myself: It is going to get better! Probably. Maybe.
Well, this is our last newsletter of 2022, and what a year it has been: War in Ukraine, cost of living crisis, inflation, droughts and floods, Government turmoil and strikes. In the face of everything that seems bleak, and with little optimism about improvements in 2023, it is even more important to focus on the positives so here are my personal and professional highlights of 2022.
Helping get the Surrey VCSE Alliance up and running represents a great opportunity for our sector to get front and centre of health and care integration in a way we’ve never seen before. It’s early days, but definitely has the potential to make a massive difference to our sector and residents of Surrey.
Despite the challenges, the VCFS in Surrey remains strong – 4,500+ registered organisations and 2-4 times as many community groups all working tirelessly on behalf of others (you are all stars!)
The Surrey Charities Forum is going from strength to strength, bringing in people from across the VCFS, SCC, Districts and Boroughs and Health to share information, discuss, debate, agree and collaborate on issues common to us all.
SCC carried out an infrastructure review that demonstrated the great service we, the County’s CVSs and other infrastructure charities offer to other charities and community groups across Surrey.
Hybrid working is here to stay and we have done our bit by making our conference rooms at Astolat hybrid-friendly with new screens and video conference equipment in all three rooms (contact us to find out more!).
Our 2022 annual conference, the Charity Mash-Up was a rousing success with well over 130 people coming together in Woking for keynote speakers, workshops and market place.
One thing that is common across all of the above, and the hundreds of things I didn’t mention, is the amazing bunch of people I get to work with every day. Even if it feels like the odds are stacked against us at times, I’m pretty certain that this dedicated, tireless, fearless and unwaveringly optimistic group of people will rise to the occasion and do even greater thigs next year. I’m proud to work alongside you.
I have been thinking long and hard about what to put in this introduction. Do I comment on the cost-of-living crisis and how it continues to hurt us and the people we help? Or do I mention the situation in Westminster? Or maybe the recruitment challenges many of us are facing? Or something innocuous like the changing weather?
In the end I have settled for something completely different and infinitely more positive, and it is this: Almost a month after our 2022 Charity Mash-Up, I am still getting positive feedback from people who trusted us with their time and got something valuable in return, and I’m still grinning as a result. I just want to thank our exhibitors, workshop presenters and panel members for making the day so great, but even more importantly I want to thank my amazing staff team who without exception went above and beyond the call of duty to make the day a roaring success.
I’m going to single out one member of staff who wasn’t with us in person, but who was definitely with us in spirit. He had a great excuse: Congratulations George and Collette on the birth of your first baby, Rose.
Welcome from Jason Gaskell, CEO
I don’t know about you, but I really welcome the recent rain and dramatic thunderstorms. The last two nights have been spent with my kids and me pressed up against the window waiting for the next lightning strike to arc across the sky. In a way, it’s a metaphor for other things. Just when the latest peal of thunder dies away and we think that the storm has passed, there’s another blinding flash, a roar of thunder that rattles the window frames, and a deluge that threatens the guttering. Similarly, just when Covid seems to have loosened some of its grip (but by no means gone away!), along comes war in Ukraine, energy cost rises and inflation we’ve not seen since I was too young to vote. A perfect storm of challenges and I wonder where the next strike (metaphorically and literally!) will come from.
We wanted to understand a little bit more about some of the challenges you are facing, how you are responding and how you are feeling about the future. Many of you kindly responded to a survey we put out a few weeks ago, and I’m happy to share the results below. It was a tricky report to write to be honest. It’s clear that some of us are really struggling with issues not of our making, and some are even thinking the unthinkable; reducing services to those that need us. But it’s also clear that a lot of us are continuing to grit our teeth and grin through yet another challenging year. I feel nothing but admiration for those who are managing to weather the storm (this is a metaphor that just keeps on giving!) and have both admiration and sympathy for those that are struggling but will continue to do their level best to help.
There’s a summary of our findings below and a link to the full report. Have a read and let me know whether you agree or disagree, and take a look at the calls to action. Let’s make ourselves heard and make some thunder of our own.
One thing that can help is coming along to our annual conference in Woking on Thursday 29 September. As well as hearing from experts about the current challenges and what might happen next, there are also funders galore in the market place and workshops that will help you get to grips with fundraising, managing finances, marketing yourselves, recruitment and much more. Please come along then, and let’s look forward to seeing a rainbow as the storm moves away (last weather metaphor, I promise).
It’s summer holiday time! If you and your family are taking a well-earned break, I hope you have a great time and come back relaxed, refreshed and energised. Hopefully those of us staying at home will enjoy a nice summer too – although not as hot as recent days, please!
I’m going to use this introduction to shamelessly plug our annual conference taking place in September, full details below. I’m particularly looking forward to a Q&A session with Tim Oliver, Leader of Surrey County Council, Sarah Vibert, of NCVO and Paul Streets, of the Lloyds Bank Foundation. If you have burning questions for the very distinguished panel, why not come along and ask them? I really hope to see you there.
Have a good summer!
As I write this, there are only 91 days (or 90 sleeps as I would say to the kids) until our first face to face annual conference since before Covid reared its ugly head. We already have an exciting array of speakers and workshops designed to tickle the fancy of CEOs, operations managers, fundraisers, marketeers and trustees from charities and community groups of all shapes and sizes. I really look forward to hosting these events, not just because we consistently get great feedback from delegates (we not immune to the thrill of a good old-fashioned ego boost!) but because I get to meet loads of new and old colleagues and find out about what is making you tick and what keeps you up at night. We exist to support you in the former and help you minimise the latter, so the conference is always a win:win for us and you. With that in mind, I hope to see you in September – if not before. I might even wear a tie and if that isn’t enough to persuade you, early bird tickets are on sale for just £25 until the end of July!.
Speaking of connecting with colleagues, can I remind you of the Surrey Charities Forum? Set up during Covid to connect us with our local authority and other public sector friends, the group has gone from strength to strength and now offers a monthly opportunity to hear from each other about what’s going on and how we can work together to address some of the undoubted challenges faced by our residents. We might not be able to do anything about petrol prices but we can all, collectively, help to make people’s lives that much better in so many other ways. Recent highlights have ranged from Household Support Fund to Supported Learning to Health and Care integration, and we have loads more to look forward to (we’ll be covering libraries transformation and community link workers at the next meeting – see below). If there’s something on your mind and you want to pick the brains of an amazing group of charity and public sector professionals, you know where to come.
Finally, I would like to use this opportunity to embarrass Amanda Channer. Amanda has been my PA and our Astolat office manager for several years now, but will be leaving us for pastures new next week. We all wish her every success and I thank her for all her help, support and irreverence (in a good way!) over the years.
I’m thinking a lot about collaboration at the moment. Collaboration is hard to get right, but absolutely brilliant when you do. I half remember an article I read somewhere and somewhen about collaboration: The Red Shirts Co and the Blue Shirts Co agree to collaborate, to achieve more together than they could individually. At the first meeting, the Red Shirts arrive and hand out red shirts for everyone to wear, and the Blue Shirts turn up with blue shirts for everyone to wear, each assuming that collaboration meant doing things their way. The moral of the story was that everyone should probably be wearing purple shirts. I’m not sure I agree. Collaboration doesn’t mean abandoning your own values, identify, principles and ways of working, but it does mean bringing in what each partner does well, and amplifying each other in a kind of positive feedback loop, where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts AND you get to wear whatever coloured shirt you like. Don’t get me wrong – it can be incredibly hard work, not to mention occasionally frustrating, but it can also be invigorating and eye-opening too. Either way, the outcomes are worth it.
There are many, many, fantastic collaborative activities going on in Surrey, and I’m very pleased to be part of some of them; from working together to develop and implement the Surrey VCSE Alliance, to working with SCC partners to help get Household Support Grants to people in urgent need, to making an introduction or two to charities that can then go on and help each other out.
I’ll finish off by reminding you that the Surrey Charities Forum is one way that you can meet and work with like minded peers from across Surrey, once a month, online. We cover a lot of topics of interest to charities and non-charity partners, and the agenda is set by you. To find out more, drop Amanda an email ([email protected]) and give us a try – we don’t bite, honest.
Welcome to our March newsletter. I hope it finds you well. Out of curiosity, I took a look at our newsletter from March 2020 to see what’s changed in the last two years or so. By coincidence, I started that newsletter in exactly the same way I will be starting this one: With a plea for you all to complete a survey for Surrey County Council who would like to check how charities like ours are doing in helping you address the million and one challenges you are facing while supporting your beneficiaries. Please, please, please help us out by filling in the survey.
Our second, special, newsletter that month went out in response to Covid as it started rearing its ugly head. It’s amazing to reflect on what has changed since then. Covid is still with us, and we appear to be living with it (fingers crossed), but we will be wrestling with the aftermath for years to come. After two years of careful avoidance, my family and I all caught Covid recently (ironically via my son attending a first aid course!) and endured a very uncomfortable couple of weeks. I say this not for sympathy, but as a reminder that it is still doing the rounds, and even with jabs and boosters can still be quite nasty – and that’s from someone without any particular vulnerabilities. So, take care of yourselves and others please.
Finally, a plug for our sparkly new and improved meeting rooms which now allow you and your colleagues to meet and mix in a new way that takes the best of real and virtual meetings. Contact us for information and bookings.
Welcome to our first newsletter of 2022! It really feels like change is in the air. I’m not just talking about easing of Covid restrictions (for now at least), I’m also talking about a fundamental change in the way health, social care, local authorities, and the voluntary sector work together to improve the lives of Surrey’s residents.
For years, we have pushed to get the voluntary sector recognised as equal partners in the health and care environment of Surrey (and beyond). Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had some great successes (our place on the Health and Wellbeing Board, and the work of the Surrey Wellbeing Partnership to name but two) but the voice of our sector is still not heard in every corner of the health and care systems – our expertise and experience is still not fully respected everywhere it needs to be.
That’s why I am particularly excited by the new Surrey VCSE Alliance. NHS England has recognised the important role we play in health and wellbeing, from the biggest health charities to the smallest community groups, and is keen that we are invited into every room where decisions are made, services are planned, and patient/resident needs are discussed. I am proud to be part of this work (alongside an amazing group of voluntary sector leaders) and I wanted to let you all know what’s going on and how you can engage.
I suspect that a few of you think that health and wellbeing is not what you do but reflect on this: Driving an elderly neighbour to a hospital appointment is supporting health, as are weight loss groups, foodbanks, sports clubs, homelessness support, drug and alcohol care, and so on. But so too are those of you who are helping an unemployed person into work, advising on debt, hosting a cup of tea and a chat. You might not think so, but you too are contributing to the wider determinants of health in Surrey and your role is valuable and is to be recognised.
So, a slightly late happy new year from me and the team at Surrey Community Action, and a hope that 2022 brings you all you need to carry on helping the people of Surrey.
Well, it’s definitely autumn again; dark evenings, golden leaves, scraping the windscreen and endless Christmas adverts. Hopefully, this Christmas will be a little better than the last one.
I have been spending the occasional evening diving deep into the Charity Commission database (it’s a dirty job but someone’s got to do it!) and it reminded me how large and vibrant the voluntary sector in Surrey actually is. Over 4,000 registered charities delivering services to people across Surrey, and anything up to 10,000 other not-for-profit organisations. Over coming weeks, we will be sharing some quick 2-minute videos talking about the size and shape of our sector – how many of us are there? What do we do? How do we work? Questions like that. One of the reasons we are doing this is so that we can understand a little bit more about the longer term impact Covid-19 has had and is continuing to have on us all. I’m curiously optimistic that the impact of Covid-19 may not be as drastic as I had feared, but only time will tell. Fingers crossed!
This is our last newsletter of the year, so I would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and that your 2022 beats your 2021 hands down!
