Support Fenland Project Launches at Queen Mary Centre in Wisbech

Over forty individuals from voluntary organisations across the Fenland district attended the official launch of the Support Fenland project recently. The event, which was held at the Queen Mary Centre in Wisbech, was an opportunity for those from the voluntary sector to hear more about the project, meet the team and find out how they could be involved. During part of the event, attendees were encouraged to discuss several topics, including identifying the strengths of the Fenland area and how, together with the help of the Support Fenland team, their organisations could find solutions to overcoming some of the challenges that also exist.

Support Fenland is a five-year project funded by the National Lottery Community Fund to help communities and charities across the whole of the Fenland District and is being delivered by the Support Cambridgeshire partnership (The Hunts Forum of Voluntary Organisations and Cambridge Centre of Voluntary Services, also known as Hunts Forum and CCVS). Kathryn Shepherdson, Deputy CEO at Hunts Forum, said,

It is important that we hear first-hand the voice of those organisations based in the Fens for us to channel the support to those groups that need it. Their feedback is invaluable to us, and we look forward to working with communities and groups to ensure they flourish. Comments that we received following the event have been extremely positive, referring to the project a small group representative said, ‘If this had been about when I started up it would have been so useful.’ We want to ensure that no group or person with a good idea to help their community has to work in isolation and they are given access to support, guidance and advice when needed.

Support Fenland offers a range of free services, including training, how to identify funding sources, making successful grant applications, structuring a non-profit group, writing polices and governance, providing networking opportunities, mentoring and much more.

Leading the project are Marija Lysak, Fenland Development Officer and Didem (Dee) Ucuncu, Fenland Communities Officer, who both bring a wealth of experience from the private, charity and volunteer sectors.