Events on the Calendar.

The Leeds Voice calander has a massive range of events on strategic decision making, better governance structures, community empowerment, representing the sector at Local Strategic Partnerships and more. I can't keep up with it all and I just add the environment-specific stuff to my blog. Please remember to check the calander, add your events and read the Leeds Voice Bulletin. The events below give a general idea of the events that are relevant to the forum but are not environment-specific. see: http://freecal.brownbearsw.com/VoiceEvents or via http://www.leedsvoice.org.uk/

Thursday, March 6 2008
09:00 - 13:30
Networking Event

Archway, 95 Roundhay Road, Leeds LS8 5AQ

InformLeeds is organising this event which will introduce you to some useful tools that can be used with groups, when advising them about the following:

· Helping groups to think strategically
· Getting Ready for Paid Staff
· Recruiting a Worker
· Agreeing a Mission
· Agreeing Aims

The tools will be demonstrated by Dave Carr from SKiLD, a national learning project for development workers based in local infrastructure organisations across England.

By the end of the event, you will have learnt some practical and creative ways to work with groups and have the tools to help you.

We will also be looking at ways of working more effectively together and it will be a good opportunity to meet other people in Leeds that are doing the same kind of work as you.

To book a place, please contact Carlos Chavez at Leeds Community Foundation on 0113 2422426 or carlos@leedscommunityfoundation.org.uk
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Monday, March 10 2008
10:00 - 16:00
Sharing our practice - Empowerment!

St. Georges Centre

A practice exchange workshop and Action Learning Session on skills for effective representation in communities
Community Empowerment Workshop: in this workshop we will be looking at the skills and abilities needed to be an effective representative of the voluntary and community sectors on Local Strategic Partnerships and other strategic groups. To do this we will be sharing our own experience and make use of a set of skills developed through recent research. The National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA) has developed a set of competencies for effective representation and we'll be drawing on these to help us look at our own roles. The workshop will also focus on empowerment - how can we act as empowering representatives and leaders? How can we build skills and confidence in others as well as our selves? We'll use look at the idea of 'empowering leadership', again drawing on our own experience, as well as recent work on this carried out by NAVCA. see also Maximum 20 participants.

The Action Learning Session:
17 March, 10 to 1.30 including lunch - in Leeds (venue to be confirmed)

This informal half day session will be an opportunity for people to go into more depth to share their experiences. Using 'action learning' methods we will work in small groups to explore problems and challenges, again drawing on the NAVCA research on skills for effective representation as a broad framework. In comparison to the workshop, this session gives you more time to reflect on your own work in a supportive environment. Maximum 15 participants Both events are open to anyone from the voluntary and community sectors who are involved as representatives on LSPs, either the executive board or thematic partnerships, as well as anyone from the public sector who is interested or involved in supporting representatives.

Booking: Priority will be given to participants who can attend both sessions - complete the form attached or accessible at: www.regionalforum.org.uk/publications_resources/news/662.doc <www.regionalforum.org.uk/publications_resources/news/662.doc> We can pay travel expenses by public transport where necessary.
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Tuesday, March 11 2008
10:00 - 15:00
Improving Reach

Priory Street Centre, York

Empowering rural communities - a workshop for people who support rural community groups The Regional Empowerment Partnership is part of the National Empowerment Partnership which has been established by the Department for Communities and Local Government. The central aim of the national strategy is to improve the quality and functioning of relationships between citizens and government in order to increase the ability of people to influence to decisions which affect their lives. The main purpose of the National Partnership is to improve community empowerment and engagement by showing where they are taking place, how well they are working, what makes them work well and disseminating and applying those lessons widely. This should bring about, over a period of time, an improvement in the quality of community empowerment across England. The regional partnership will carry forward much of the practical work and the relationship with local authorities and their partners. The principal outcome being looked for is an increase in the number of people, especially people in disadvantaged areas, who participate in public issues, press for and contribute to the improvement of public services and help to shape the future of their locality. There is a particular concern about the level of involvement in decision making of people living rurally and about the opportunities available to them. It is important that the experiences of people working rurally are included in this exercise. The Yorkshire and Humber Community Development Network is a member of the regional consortium and is organising a forum for rural community development workers to look at gathering examples of good practice in empowerment and identifying gaps in strategy, provision and impact and looking at ways in which they might be filled. This workshop is free but there will be a £20 deposit, returnable on attendance - please see booking form for details. Please see <www.fcdl.org.uk/events> for a booking form, or contact Sue Leach, Admin Support Officer at the Federation: email admin@fcdl.org.uk> admin@fcdl.org.uk or tel. 0114 253 6770. If you would like to find out a bit more about the workshop, please contact Ann Hindley at ann@hindley.gn.apc.org>

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