The Hereford Times

Herefordshire volunteers

11:43am Friday 18th April 2008

THE value of volunteering is being recognised as a worthy business – and to ensure the 1,560 organisations in Herefordshire succeed a support system has been set up to lend lots of helping hands.

The support comes in the form of local partnerships that are set up to plan, deliver and support communities. Although each one has its own priority they all share the same goal of making sure communities are allowed to take care of themselves and more importantly their voices are heard. It all comes neatly wrapped in a substantial funding package.

The funding is available to every voluntary organisation from a small friends of the church group to a town council and national charities. The partnerships are there to offer help to individual organisations to make a business out of being vibrant and effective.

The support has had to be partnership based because that’s the route central government streams the funding – and Herefordshire has its share. There’s the Herefordshire Partnership that looks at sustainability from a strategic level. The Herefordshire Voluntary Sector Assembly (VSA) makes sure the views of local voluntary and community groups influence decision makers.

To strengthen voluntary and community groups the Hereford Infrastructure Consortium (HIC) was formed. This is made up of five organisations: Age Concern Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Herefordshire Voluntary Action, Community First, Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Community Voluntary Action Ledbury & District and Herefordshire Council for Voluntary Youth Service.

HIC Chairman, Richard Betterton, said that the consortium was a behind-the-scenes operation and its job was to fully support the groups in a practical hands-on fashion.

“We draw on all the organisations’ expertise and will help community groups and organisations by providing funding, business and planning support. For instance, we have a village hall advisory service that looks at financial sustainability. There is a great deal of competitiveness in this area so each village hall needs to know how to run as a business,” he said.

A series of workshops – ‘Fit for the Future’ was the first of its kind – was organised by VSA and held at the Kindle Community Centre in Hereford. It attracted more than 100 people from 60 organisations from around the county and covered funding, organisation structures, retaining volunteers and IT.

It was a day for organisations to get together, share ideas and meet old friends and make new ones, said VSA co-ordinator Susan Black.

“We put it on so we could learn from it, too. You don’t know what you don’t know until you fall over it.

“Communities are evolving and changing all the time,” she said.