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** Please find below all news releases as posted during 2005 ** Christmas comes early for Leek Groups Posted 2nd Dec 2005 17 Leek groups had an early Christmas present when they were recently told that they would be receiving a grant under County Councillor Neal Podmore’s Local Member Initiative Scheme. A total of £1,590 will be handed out by Neal on Tuesday 6th December during a presentation at Bank House. Each County Councillor had £10,000 this year to offer to local projects and activities under the Local Member Initiative Scheme. When Neal saw the publicity for the District Council’s Community Grant Scheme this summer, he contacted SMCVS because we administer the Moorlands Council grant, to see if he could help with small grants to Leek groups. The £1,590 is being given to the Leek groups that had applied to SMCVS under the District Council grant scheme, some of whom were unsuccessful or who received a lower grant than they applied for under that scheme. The money will fund a wide variety of activity from Christmas books for toddlers, to help with travel costs of outings for people with learning difficulties, and a new fishing platform for a local club. As Neal comments: “There is an amazing range of activity organised by voluntary groups in Leek from a wide variety of sports clubs to self-help groups and those helping youngsters and older people to have some fun. I am really pleased to have the opportunity of working with the CVS to give financial support to some of these groups.” SMCVS currently manages 6 different grant schemes that target help at different aspects of voluntary and community work. Our grants team can offer advice on many other national, regional and local sources of funding. rather than having to trawl through various web sites or literature. Please contact: 01538 381356 for further help, information and project development support or email: grants@smcvs.co.uk Protecting Children and Vulnerable Adults Posted 1st Dec 2005 SMCVS has recently adopted a policy on child and vulnerable adult protection and the safeguarding of staff and volunteers. You may wish to consider whether your group should adopt a similar policy. Certainly such policies are now seen as essential for groups that have significant contact with children and potentially vulnerable adults, but even those with little contact should consider their position. Feel free to use the SMCVS version as a starting point for your group in developing its own policy. The SMCVS policy can be viewed here – or ring Mike Smith for a copy on 01538 381356. Other models are available from the NSPCC (www.nspcc.org.uk) and National Council of Voluntary Child Care Organisations (www.ncvcco.org) and there are some guidelines on the Charity Commission web site (www.charitycommission.gov.uk) Make A Difference Day Fair hits town this weekend! Posted 25th Oct 2005 A host of the Moorlands charities and community groups will be coming together this Saturday 29th October for a large Community Fair in aid of this year’s Make A Difference Day. National organisations such as Rethink and the WRVS through to more local groups like Cheadle Amateur Theatrical Society, Cheadle Disabled Club and Cheadle Citizens Advice Bureau will all be coming together to raise awareness of their work, recruit new volunteers and boost their local projects. The event, to take place at The Guild Hall in Cheadle, is to help celebrate people all over the UK who take action to change their communities for the better. Organised by the Staffordshire Moorlands Volunteer Centre, over 20 community and voluntary groups will be available to chat to in the Cheadle Guild Hall from 10am – 3pm. Local group, Ipstones Pre-School Playgroup will be raising funds for their work by offering face painting and Majestic Owls will be on hand to raise funds for local charities whilst introducing people to their amazing array of owls. Along with free refreshments, courtesy of the staff or Barclays Bank in Cheadle, side-show games, tom bolas, a second-hand book stall there’s plenty going on! SMCVS will be running competitions to win a family ticket to Alton Towers and a Sunday lunch carvery at The Manor in Cheadle - the day should have something for every member of the family! The Make A Difference annual event is your chance to make a positive difference and this year’s Cheadle Community Fair will also let you have fun doing it! Book in now: Cheadle's MADD Fair Coming Soon! Posted 5th Sept 2005 If you and your local community or voluntary group would like to join in the celebrations of all the excellent work that is going on in the Cheadle area, this Octobers’ “Make A Difference Day” Cheadle Community Fair is for you! This is your chance to make a positive difference – and have fun doing it! The Volunteer Centre of Staffordshire Moorlands Community and Voluntary Services are organising the Cheadle Community Fair to take place in The Guild Hall from 10am – 3pm on Tape Street, Cheadle on Saturday 29th October. This will entail a large number of local charitable and community based organisations coming together and is a great chance to set up a promotional stall and promote your organisation or group, its work and aims and its need for volunteers, to the local public. The response from local organisations that have taken part in similar events has been very positive and this year it is hoped that the Cheadle “Make A Difference Day” Community Fair will be bigger and better than ever before! There will be family entertainment and a great atmosphere on hand, with the opportunity for local organisations to also raise funds via tom bolas, raffles, cake stalls etc. CSV’s “Make A Difference Day” is now in its 10th year of celebrations and as the UK’s biggest day of direct volunteering it is a fantastic way to highlight all of the excellent work that goes on in the local community. If any local organisation would like a stall, for the nominal fee of £5, please contact the Volunteer Centre at Staffordshire Moorlands Community and Voluntary Services as soon as possible so that you can be sent all the necessary information. Stalls are going quickly, but please don’t miss out on this great opportunity to shout about your organisation, all the great work that you do and your need for extra help in order to continue to grow. For a registration form please contact Jo Phillips at Staffordshire Moorlands Community and Voluntary Services: (t) 01538 398240 or email: volunteering@smcvs.co.uk SMCVS AGM Announcement posted Sept 5th 2005 Please note - the SMCVS AGM is taking place on 7th September 2005 - at The National Reserve Club, High Street, Leek at 7:30pm The meeting is open to all and all member organisations are entitled to send one voting representative. Invitations have gone out to all member organisations and partners. For further information, please contact: Mrs Jean Dale at SMCVS on 0158 381356
SMCVS will be hosting a marquee at this year's Leek & District Agricultural Show. For the second year running we will be available to talk to any of our member organisations about how we can help and support you - and to any members of the general public about how they can access and benefit from the services that we offer. We are pleased to be hosting our marquee in partnership with Staffordshire Moorlands Primary Care Trust and aim to have a varied selection of information on hand for people to browse through or take away. This year's show will also see the official launch of the new SMCVS name and logo. Following work with the Charity Commission our new name, "Staffordshire Moorlands Community & Voluntary Services" will be unveiled officially at the event. The time and agenda for this will be confirmed very soon and posted here for information. Please do come and join us on what we hope will be a very successful day and the start of a new look CVS!
CVS Members agreed at an Extraordinary General Meeting on the 25th May that the CVS name should be changed from Staffordshire Moorlands Council for Voluntary Service to "Staffordshire Moorlands Community and Voluntary Services". This has the benefit of keeping the widely recognised acronym of "CVS" while emphasising that we work widely in the community and with the community groups as well as with voluntary organisations. Hopefully it will also change our position in the telephone directory so that staff will no longer need to spend time re-directing calls to the District Council! Once the name has been formally changed at Companies House and on Charity Commission records, we will start using it with the brand new logo. The official launch of the new name is likely to be at Leek Show on Saturday 30th July 2005. While changing our name we have also amended our area of benefit. This will be "Staffordshire, Derbyshire, East and West Midlands with particular reference to the local government district of Staffordshire Moorlands District Council". Don't worry - we are not planning to take over the world! Our emphasis will continue to be work within the Staffordshire Moorlands. It's just that we are increasingly working on joint projects with colleagues across Staffordshire in particular, but also in the Derbyshire Peak District, and charity law says that such partnership working has to be covered in our defined area of benefit. The new definition is one suggested to us by the Charity Commission. |
SMCVS produces a monthly newsletter that is sent out to all of our members and any other interested organisations or individuals. If you would like to submit an article that would be relevant to our readers or insert an advert, please click here. |
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