This year, The Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service (QAVS) is running a special additional award to commemorate the Platinum Jubilee. They want to celebrate the fantastic work completed by national charities and their volunteers to empower young people and provide them with skills and opportunities.

This opportunity is only open to registered charities that are organised on a national basis (either UK-wide or with a national reach in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales)

You can find out more of the criteria and how to apply by clicking here. 

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-queens-platinum-jubilee-volunteering-award

Previously we reported about the annual Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, which is open to a wider category.

Nominations for the 2023 awards are now open and they are accepting nominations until 15 September 2022. Further details can be found here.

‘Simple’, ‘easy to use’, and ‘an effective way to raise money’ are phrases used to describe online funding platform easyfundraising by other voluntary organisations, charities, and CICs.

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easyfundraising makes fundraising for your organisation effortless. By partnering with over 6,000 online brands, easyfundraising turns online shopping into free funding your organisation can put to good use. With most people shopping online now, it’s an easy way for your volunteers, supporters, and the wider community to support your fundraising efforts for free. Every time they shop online, they’ll generate a donation for you at no extra cost to them.

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How is Space Youth Services fundraising for staff development and new pilot initiatives?

Along with thousands of voluntary organisations, charities and CICs, they are benefitting from monetary donations when their volunteers, staff and supporters use fundraising platform easyfundraising to shop online.

Your organisation can do the same by setting up an easyfundraising account so your volunteers and can raise money for you when they shop at over 6,000 online retailers including eBay, Amazon, M&S, John Lewis, Sainsbury’s and Tesco.

Space Youth Services say,

“I would definitely recommend it to other organisations as a simple, straightforward way of raising additional funds that require little input and maintenance.”

Find out more about easyfundraising here:https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/val/

VAL are looking for individuals who have volunteered during the pandemic in the City, County and Rutland to share your story on the Community of Spirit Leicestershire link.

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Read more about the project below:

Community Spirit of Leicestershire is a community arts project to collect stories and celebrate the work of volunteers during the pandemic in the city, county and Rutland.

Artist & creative producer Ruth Singer following her volunteering at a food bank in Leicester during the height of the pandemic have created this project.

She felt it was so important to gather the stories of volunteering, to record just how vital their work was and to celebrate the amazing support and community building that volunteers have done throughout 2020 and 2021 to support others impacted by covid.

With funding from Arts Council England and Leicester city council community ward funding, Ruth aims to run events and a website to collect experiences and stories about volunteering, during and beyond volunteers week 2022 (1-7th June 2022).

As well as the stories, Ruth & associate artist Mandeep Dhadialla (from Leicester) are running events where volunteers can tell their story in person and make rosettes to form a collective artwork. Materials packs will also be available for volunteers who want to make a creative contribution from home.

These rosettes will be displayed together in community spaces and then eventually the rosettes artwork will be created over the summer and displayed at community venues around Leicester, Leicestershire & Rutland in the autumn. After the end of the touring exhibition, the rosettes will be distributed back to nominated volunteers at the end of the project as a keepsake to remind them of the special role they volunteered to do.

The pandemic and the cost of living situation has compounded the need for emergency food provision and a lot of local VCSE organisations are involved in this type of community support.

VAL has come across the Pathways From Poverty model (‘Pathways’), which involves placing specialist advice workers into community-led food projects to help resolve some of the wider issues that households are facing when they receive help with food.

This approach is gathering momentum across community food providers, including food banks and Affordable Food Clubs such as pantries and social supermarkets.

You can find out more about this model. As well as some considerations if you wish to pilot the model in your area by clicking here

If you are a local group providing food provision and want any help with developing your services, get in touch with VAL via it’s helpline to see how we can help.   https://valonline.org.uk/contact/

The role of a VCSE representative includes :

• Acting on behalf of the VCSE sector and advocating the views and perspectives of the sector at various local boards
• Be accountable to the VCSE sector – gathering input from colleagues and feeding back to them

VAL is keen to hear from anyone that acts as a VCSE representative at a local level. Be that parish, district/borough, county, or a wider geographical remit.

Please get in touch by contacting our helpline.

In future sector support newsletters we hope to feature more about our local county representatives.

 

The campaign is designed to drive awareness and uptake of the regulator’s 5-minute guides, which together make up an introduction to the ‘core syllabus’ that they are keen all charity trustees should be familiar with.

In November 2020 VAL wrote a blog when the first 5 minute guides were introduced.

The 5 minute guides on offer at that stage were:

• Managing Charity Finances
• Charity Purposes and Rules
• Managing conflicts of interest in a charity
• What to send to the Charity Commission and how to get help
• Making decisions at a charity

The blog titled Trustees Week 2020 – What’s new to read and action can be accessed here.

In November 2021 a further 5 minute guide was added called:

• Safeguarding for charities and trustees

That guide can be accessed here.

Details about the campaign can be found here.

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Videos:

The new campaign will run for six weeks on digital channels including social media.

Here are some of the animated videos uploaded so far.

The animated video promoting the making decision guide can be found on you tube here

The animated video about managing finances guide can be found on you tube here

The animated video promoting the delivering purpose guide can be found on your tube here

The animated video promoting the managing conflict guide can be found on you tube here

If you are a trustee and would like help with your trustee board or committee of trustees understanding their responsibilities then get in touch via VAL’s helpline

Charity Digital (registered as Charity Digital Trust – charity number 1133179) was established in 2001 to help other charities accelerate their missions using digital technology.

Their content editor and writer has recently written an article about the ten digital trends that are set to dominate 2022 and offered charities some essential advice and guidance on each trend.

These include :

• The increasing inevitability of cloud based storage which helps remote and hybrid working.
• Virtual reality with charities like NSPCC pioneering the use of a computer simulation programme to help tackle child abuse.
• Artificial intelligence with charities like Mencap using an  ‘Understand Me’ chat bot on their website. The chat bot guides users and donors through a conversation with Aeren, who was born with a learning disability. The chat bot gives users information about her life, while also providing statistics on learning disabilities in the UK.

For more details of the trends and what to consider, click here.

If your charity would like help with reviewing your digital strategy you can access support by contacting VAL’s helpline here.

As from 6 April 2022  the guidance for the registered office address of a company has been updated in line with Trading Standards recommendations and section 86 of the Companies Act 2006.

If you choose to engage a third party agent to handle your mail, you must ensure that the arrangements provide for all mail to be forwarded to you regardless of its source.

Details of the new requirements can be found in section 1.8 of the companies house incorporation and names guidance which can be accessed here.

The consultation closes on 25 April 2022

Leicestershire Waste Partnership which comprises Leicestershire County Council and the 7 District/Borough Councils is seeking views on the new ‘Resources and Waste Strategy for Leicestershire’ as part of a 12 week public consultation.

The strategy examines what happens to your recycling and waste and how this can help reduce climate change and save raw materials.

The strategy has 11 pledges that sit alongside the government’s proposed national changes to waste collections, in order to meet the 65% national recycling target by 2035.

The draft pledges include supporting and encouraging waste prevention; delivering reuse services; separate food waste collections; reducing waste sent to landfill to less than 5% by 2025.

Leicestershire County Council is seeking to engage and consult with a range of stakeholders in relation to this new strategy.

The draft Strategy, along with an online survey can be accessed here.

To be a proactive and risk led regulator, the Commission needs to be able to segment the charity sector so they can analyse how different charities are affected by risks, tailor their advice and issue targeted messaging.

User testing will take place throughout April 2022 to ensure the codes are fit for purpose and charities are able to classify themselves.

They welcome all charities interested in user testing to contact them at UserResearchTeam@charitycommission.gov.uk

The codes will be reviewed as needed based on the feedback from this testing.

The policy paper around these proposed changes can be found here.