Another great week. Two VERY important new initiatives from the Ministry of Justice (Chris Grayling, MP Epsom&Ewell). One is to break up the National Offender management Service(NOMS) and put it out in 16 (regional ) Lots each worth £90 mill. to the third sector. Big E- debate as to whether the vol sector can in fact participate, or only the Capita, Serco, G4S contractors. Second is to put more education into youth offender prisons so they become “secure colleges”.
Regular readers may have noticed some Delphic references to “developments” which I can now disclose, and explains the interest in the above. First Surrey Youth Focus is selling some support services to The Youth Consortium including: help with social media, mapping of all youth organisations AND top 450 businesses – courtesy of pro bono work with Ordnance Survey, and time from me on spotting future development opportunities.
A second development is that we have won some Big Assist (Lottery) funding with which to engage a consultant to look at how best the various youth organisations might work better together (by trading between each other) and save on support costs. Results will go to our Trustees in July meeting. Will be radical. (From Latin “radix” –root).
New branding finished and to be launched with next edition of Surrey youth News at the end of the month – be interested in your feedback. Closely links to our commissioning of a website company to redesign our website completely – it dates from 2008, and is still OK but needs to be updated. Seeing a very whizzy design company next week who may do it pro bono.
Two very positive meetings this week with senior managers at Surrey CC , and then yesterday afternoon a slightly odd peer review discussion by external executives as to whether Surrey CC is an innovative organisation and effective partner from a vol sector perspective. Our views seemed to be met with some incredulity. Not sure I will be participating in such events in future.
But the stars of the week are Eikon and their lovely staff and young people. They had an event last night sponsored by Coutts Bank so that Eikon could receive a substantial cheque as a gift from a lady who is property developer and believes in philanthropy (see her “Give it away”website. (“Philanthropy”, Greek: Philos- anthropos = “lover of humanity”. And the lady in question clearly does, as she has given away a very remarkable £1 million to charities. Her donation to Eikon was her final donation to hit her personal goal of giving away £1 million. Brilliant – like the high quality catering from Truffles of West Byfleet. Inspirational evening – congrats to Chris and all at Eikon!
No rugger this w/e but Les Rosbifs did the bizz last Sat. Italy then Wales for the decider. Singing in Chichester Cathedral on Saturday – massed choirs (350 singers-a fine noise in a beautiful building). On leave on Monday to do serious training walk(20 miles +) for my Y to Y Marathon Walk in aid of Redhill YMCA on 17 March – I shall be after your money soon!!
Have fun!
Mike
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