And so it begins. This weekend see the NICVA team attend the first of the main political party conferences.  I love the buzz of party conference season. But I do not love the now customary discussion about whether or not to try a fringe meeting.  They have never quite worked for us. Once we had a meeting on community planning at the SDLP conference at the same time as Gerry Conlon was speaking at another fringe.  Even I wanted to go to the Gerry Conlon session.    With the notable exception of a session on the value of community participation at the UUP conference two years ago,  fringe meetings have been a hit and miss.  I know that the women’s sector, ably lead by the fabulous Lynn Carvill, have a fringe meeting on women’s participation in political life at the SDLP conference this weekend. And I am sure they will have more luck than I did.

However we will be at all the conference dinners again this year and will have a stand in the exhibition spaces. Our message this year will be to showcase the best of the voluntary and community sector and continue our campaign to ensure that the sector is not subject to unfair and disproportionate cuts in public expenditure.  

Attending the dinner is a relatively new thing for us.  Lots of voluntary and community organisations participate in the exhibition space at party conferences but traditionally the party dinners have been the domain of the business community and other lobbyist.  Party conference dinners offer the chance to network with elected members and party officials, staff and office holders in a more informal way and we were really keen to ensure that voluntary and community organisations are able to attend.

So for the past two years we have booked a table at each conference and split the cost. It’s turned out to be a cost effective and useful way of enabling organisations to participate.   Here are the details of the conferences this year and if you would like to come let me know – the first ten names get the places.

SDLP – 6th November Ramada Hotel dinner at 8pm £50per person (two places left)

DUP -   26th November La Mon Hotel dinner at 8pm £100per person

UUP -  3rd  December, other details to be confirmed.

This month my inner nerd has even more reason to be excited as ‘pi camp’ is coming to NICVA on 20^th November.  The event draws together elected and prospective politicians and their staff, civil servants, public bodies and voluntary and community organisations with an interest in policymaking, campaigners and public affairs specialists, political bloggers, activists and innovators to debate the question ‘What do we want people working in politics, the media and public bodies to do better.’ You can find more information and book your ticket here.

November is shaping up to be political nerd-vana for me. And I don’t care who knows it.