PARTNERSHIP after Stronger Together
by Anne Laing (Partnerships Manager, RVA)
3 October 2011
The work of Stronger Together within RVA has enabled us to provide a very comprehensive support service to the voluntary and community sector (VCS) fora:
* The Forum
* Reading Faith Forum (RFF)
* Sakoma
* Reading Children & Voluntary Youth Services (RCVYS)
as well as a helping hand to others such as the Greater Reading Environmental Network.
The experience of over three years of Big Lottery funded support has given the sector a much better appreciation of the different skills and specialisms that each forum can provide, and encouraged us to find ways of working together and this has all been extremely positive.
The challenge is now to hold the partners together. The Forum, with its ability for representation from each of the other fora, is in a position to evolve its current role and is currently in discussion with RVA, who retain the only remaining partnership resource, to develop a single mechanism for the VCS to express its voice collectively. That might mean a single message but could equally mean expressing a range of views.
For the present the website
www.rvsforum.co.uk will retain the Forum Voices (Representatives) list and the RFF and Sakoma websites too will be maintained by their voluntary host organisations, with whom we hope to maintain close links.
RVA Partnerships Manager will provide ongoing information on the Local Strategic Partnership and its role and plans as part of the family of strategic boards that bring together the statutory, business and voluntary partners in Reading.
Initially that information will come to you from within the RVA E-bulletin or through the development of a dedicated Partnership News bulletin.
If you have any queries please do contact
anne.laing@rva.org.uk
[ST]
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