May 2024

Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Voluntary Sector Network Update

Voluntary Sector Network meetings

At our last meeting we met another colleague from the ICB, Laura Pollo, Assistant Director of Leadership and Organisational Development. Laura is keen to support the development and engagement of our sector. We had an interesting discussion about collaboration, with Wisbech Integrated Neighbourhood being cited as an example good practice. Our next meeting will also be face to face in St Ives. We will be featuring more about Integrated Neighbourhoods.

Faith Group research

The meeting also heard from Julie Farrow about the faith research that Support Cambridgeshire has commissioned. This research has identified over 700 faith groups and undertaken more in-depth conversations with a sample to understand the best way in which the voluntary and faith sectors can work together. The report is available here. It’s a recommended read.

New report is released looking at the Faith sector in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough – Support Cambridgeshire

Assura/ICB grants

Thank you to all members who submitted an Expression of Interest for the

Assura/ICB community grant programme. The panel were highly impressed with the quality and breadth of ideas. Successful applicants have been notified and invited to submit a full application. These will be considered by the final panel being held in June. We are pleased to have leadership input from both North and South into the panels.

Inclusion health groups

Some VSN members are participating in an NHS England learning programme around health inclusion groups. Locally, an event is being planned to understand how we can work together and plan for health inclusion for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. The date is June 26th, details are being finalised and there will be further information to follow. There will be a discussion around health inclusion and the event at the May VSN meeting. You can learn more about health inclusion here: NHS England » Inclusion health groups

Bringing your Power to Networks

The CVSs are offering a training session for any VCSE colleagues who are fairly new to attending meetings and may need a bit of confidence building to maximise their input. It will be held face to face, is free and open to staff, trustees and volunteers. Book your place via this link:

https://huntsforum.org.uk/event/bringing-your-power-to-networks-and-meetings/

Feedback, please!

We send out many emails to the Network with engagement and training opportunities. If you have taken up one of these opportunities, we would love to hear from you. A sentence or two about the difference it has made for you and your organisation would be perfect and will help us show the benefit of the Network.

Voluntary Sector Network meetings

Here are the dates of our future meetings, please do put them in your diary.

Note the changed date for June.