Just a quick reminder that the next One Walsall One Voice Forum for Walsall West Locality (Willenhall, Darlaston and Bentley,) takes place on Tuesday 3rd July from 6pm-8pm at Willenhall CHART Centre. Places can be booked by contacting One Walsall’s West Locality Development Officer Gerald Nembhard by any of the following means:

Tel: 01922 619 840 x212 Mob: 07864 921651 Email:  geraldn@onewalsall.org

or visit:    onewalsall.org

Please invite others as well.

In addition to the teas/coffees we will be sharing some pizza so please come ready to have a few slices

The Guardian Newspaper is expected to be there at the meeting. They are researching an article about the voluntary sector and its contribution to community life across Walsall as well as filming in the area for a documentary to come out on Channel  5  later this year. They want to interview a few people at the meeting so please have a few points ready to share. ?

Part of the One Walsall offer to local groups working in the community is to support them to bring in much needed resources to the sector. For example the voluntary sector has worked together with the Police in promoting their Active Citizens Fund. A World Café style meeting was held in February which resulted in three groups (All Saints Church in Darlaston, Boaters Fishing Club in Willenhall and Frank F Harrison Community Centre – for delivery of youth work at The Loft Youth Club in New Invention) securing funding of around £5,000 each.

Also recently promoted was an opportunity for the voluntary sector to work with others to submit a bid to the Home Office for funding to help combat knife crime. As a result over 15 groups were represented at a meeting to discuss the opportunity and a bid was submitted with at least 6 partners named within the bid.

These are examples of the support being given by One Walsall to the sector which will be discussed at the Forum along with other opportunities for helping voluntary groups in the West Locality.

As well as aiming to bring groups together around funding opportunities the forum also aims to bring people together to:

• Identify opportunities to share resources ensuring that the resources that the sector has are used to maximum effect.
• Look for opportunities to support each other so that services remain sustainable
• Support the development of a local VCS offer that can be promoted to statutory partners eg. schools, local authority, police, health etc
• Influence statutory partners in their decision making around the commissioning of services through the locality plan.

If you want to be part of this growing network and help shape future work please come along. The more groups involved the stronger the network will be and the greater the impact.

Look forward to seeing you at the forum.