Making haste slowly.....

A quietish week by my standards but punctuated by a visit from an assessor  from a grant-making trust to whom we have made a grant bid. It was challenging with good questions that put us on our mettle. We adjusted the bid which is to run a funding support service for our members in the light of his advice/comments. Fingers crossed.

I am totally convinced we are a well organised, financially sound organisation that makes a difference to its members and hence young people. 

To ensure this is sustained, I have begun work on preparing for our next Pqasso submission (Practical quality assurance for small organisations) – bit like IIP or ISO 2001.  Our current Level 1 award expires in November and Trustees have decided we should re-submit but at a higher standard – Level 2. Currently looking at staff roles, pay and contracts as part of this – and we need to adjust several things.

I also visited my colleague in West Sussex Council for Voluntary Youth Services (with whom we have a MoU) to see if we could offer support to them (as discussed at our last Trustees’ meeting) as they are closing in September after 35 years of operation. I felt very sorry for my colleague Chief Exec. for organisational closure is I suspect like a bereavement. We agreed a way forward that will be helpful to both organisations. Regular readers will be aware that I think that we should stretch into Sussex but we probably “need to make haste slowly”, as one of my former bosses (in West Sussex County Council) used to say.

Interest in our new website seems strong which is great – we have a new “Members only" section of the site which is where the Member benefits are located. We are linking with our friends in the Community Film Unit to commission a short explanatory film about us to go on the site.

But maybe, the high point of the week was a directors meeting yesterday of the entirely separate Surrey Youth Enterprise CiC ( Community interest company), which also has made haste slowly, but now has an office, phones, computers, desks and, shortly, staff. SO the point is that after 3 years or so of development we will be trading – indeed the first sales are in the pipeline.

Off to London on Saturday  to have dinner at son no.2’s very fine restaurant called Magdalene in Tooley St. …post holiday food/alcohol reduction will go to ruin! 

Mike