eNews: 18 June 2007

NICVA

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1. Top stories
2. Office Giveaways
3. Pick of the Websites
4. Make Your Move - new jobs this week on communityni.org
5. CommunityNI Diary
6. Subscribe to eNews
7. Feedback
8. Submit an Article
9. communitybuyer.org
10. Membership
11. Pick of the websites

Top Stories

Mergers: legal due diligence

Mergers: legal due diligence is a breakfast seminar aimed at chief executives or senior officers and/or board members of organisations that are embarking on a merger or formal collaboration. NICVA has enlisted the help of Cleaver Fulton Rankin solicitors to help demystify the merger process and legal due diligence for organisations at this special seminar on 26 June 2007. The event takes place at NICVA with breakfast and registration at 7.45am. The seminar itself runs from 8.00am to 10.00am.

Places are limited so priority will be given to those organisations which are seriously considering merging or collaborating on a formal basis. There will be an opportunity for networking and speaking to the solicitors on your specific situation after the seminar.

For further information, please contact Denise McCann at NICVA on 028 9087 7777 or email:denise.mccann@nicva.org.

To register, please download and return the booking form from www.nicva.org/index.cfm/section/events/key/mergers_event.

LINK Awards reach landmark 21^st birthday

This year marks the 21^st year of the NICVA Link Awards. The 2007-2008 Awards will be launched in the week beginning 10 September 2007, with regional presentations in November 2007 and the final gala event on 7 February 2008 at the Ramada Hotel, Belfast.

Keep an eye out for more details soon and start thinking about those nominations …

Day of private reflection

This initial Day of Private Reflection on 21 June 2007 is an initiative proposed by Healing Through Remembering (HTR) to give an opportunity for people to reflect upon the conflict in and about Northern Ireland and the future that is before us. It is offered as an inclusive and positive event that emphasises a commitment to a peaceful new society.

On the morning of 21June 2007 the Irish School of Ecumenics is making its garden and a quiet room available as spaces for private reflection from 10.00am. Resources for reflection will be available and there will be tea and coffee throughout the morning. In the afternoon there will be a walk up Cave Hill at 2.00pm.

For more information on the Day of Private Reflection visit the website or for more information on ISE visit www.tcd.ie/ise.

Turning governance policy into good practice

This seminar from CO3 - Chief Officers Third Sector will consider how to translate governance policy into good practice. Aimed at chief officers and the chairpersons of their organisations, this event reflects the importance of the relationship between chief officers and chairpersons in delivering good governance.

The event will

• Share information on the Code for Governance and its implications.
• Consider the governance lessons when organisations get into difficulty and are forced to close.
• Provide practical trustee experience of meeting high governance standards, whilst balancing stakeholder engagement and local community involvement.

Sessions and speakers include:

• The Code for Governance for the voluntary and community sector - Wendy Osborne OBE (Volunteer Development Agency)
• Governance Responsibilities in the Twilight Zone - Joan Houston (Ernst and Young)
• The Challenge of Good Governance in Practice - David Scholes (Belfast Community Housing Association)

The event takes place in the Lanyon Building, Queens University, at 6.00pm on 28 June 2007. Please call 028 9024 5356 to register.

Masters in Social and Community Development

There are still a few places available for the Masters in Social and Community Development at Queen’s. This Masters programme will be of interest to those working in the community, voluntary and statutory sectors whose work includes policy-making, interacting or campaigning in and with communities. Modules include Governance, Management and Development, Theories and Concepts of Community Development, Social Exclusion and Peace, Conflict and Reconciliation. The course provides great opportunities for networking and learning across different sectors as well as learning from a range of outside speakers.

For further information, please contact Barbara McCabe at b.mccabe@qub.ac.uk or Tel: 028 9097 5979.

Volunteers needed to ‘Go the extra mile’ for our environment

The Coalition for Environmental Protection comprising nine of Northern Ireland’s leading environmental organisations, is calling on everyone who cares about our environment to ‘Go the extra mile’ at Stormont on Thursday 28 June 2007 in an appeal to local politicians to afford greater priority to the environment and give additional resources to its protection.

Beneath Northern Ireland’s green veneer lies a degraded environment – raw sewage dumped at sea, illegal landfill sites, landscapes and wildlife under threat and historic buildings demolished.

Since 2003, the Coalition for Environmental Protection has been advocating the establishment of an independent, integrated Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for Northern Ireland and with the Final Report of the Review of Environmental Governance expected on 19 June 2007, the Coalition wants to ensure our environment is given the strong independent champion it needs.

Over 5,000 postcards have been received from the public pledging their support for an independent EPA and on the 28 June, the Coalition will display them in a mile long chain from Stormont Gates to Carson’s Statue.

To make this event work, the Coalition needs willing volunteers to ‘man’ the chain from 9.30am to 10.30am. If you’d like to get involved and do your bit for the environment, please contact Seamus og Gallagher on tel: 028 9045 5770 or email: seamus@nienvironmentlink.org.

Protect the rights of young people who work

youth@clc is developing a new children’s rights project, which will highlight the experiences of the very many young people who work in Northern Ireland. In response to the lack of information on young people who work and their experiences of discrimination in employment, youth@clc has drawn up a survey to determine the numbers of children and young people who work, what type of work they do and what issues they face.

Children’s Law Centre would like as many young people aged 11 to 17 as possible to complete the survey. The results will inform a report, which will be used to highlight to government the issues of concern in respect of the employment of young people.

If you are working with young people please encourage them to complete the survey at www.childrenslawcentre.org/CLC_survey.htm.

John Daly raises his game for the Institute of Fundraising

BBC’s John Daly launched the Northern Ireland Institute of Fundraising Annual Convention at Queen’s Sports brand new state of the art climbing wall. The Institute of Fundraising Convention takes place on 28 June 2007 at the Ramada Hotel, Belfast.

John has been involved with a number of charities across Northern Ireland for many years and is aware of the challenges in fundraising and in trying to communicate a charity’s core message.

Also taking place on the day will be the annual Fundraising Awards and charities are encouraged to nominate their volunteer of the year and/or best fundraising campaign or event. Time is running out to get those nominations in. For more information please contact Ciara Gallagher atciara.gallagher@mencap.org.uk.

There are special conference rates for community groups - bursaries are available for organisations with a turnover of less than £250,000, thanks to Lloyd’s TSB Foundation. The event has a number of seminars targeted at Community Groups. Contact Charlotte Trinder for details on tel: 0779 003 3973

Find out more about the convention and view the full programme on Grant-Tracker.

Reporting poverty

This workshop in the Hilton Hotel, Belfast, on 21 June 2007 will allow leading journalists and broadcasters to engage with both people living in poverty and representatives from charities, voluntary and public sector organisations. They will discuss how the media portrays people living in poverty in the UK and your contributions are important.

Participants will discuss how the media view the poor and vice versa, how images and language can create stereotypes, and they will explore ways of building trust between journalists and potential interviewees.

Local speakers include Alex Tennant (Save the Children), Frances Dowds (NI Anti-Poverty Network) and Jim Deery (New Lodge Forum).

Please contact Rachel Graham on 020 7874 7610 or email: rachelg@mediatrust.org to register, or book online at www.mediatrust.org

Foundation course in voluntary sector management

The University of Leicester is offering a new course in Managing Voluntary and Community Organisations by distance learning starting in October 2007. The university plans to host an information day on 5 July 2007 in Clooney Hall Centre, Derry. Presentations will be held at 10.00am and 2.00pm.

The course will explore the setting up and effective management of voluntary organisations and enhances career prospects within a community context. What makes this course particularly successful is that it is delivered by people with hands-on experience of the sector.

For further information please contact Jane Christie on tel: 0116 252 5964, email: fjc6@le.ac.uk.

Don’t stick it, stop it

As part of Learning Disability Week (17 to 24 June 2007) Mencap is launching a campaign to stop the bullying of children and young people with a learning disability.

Mencap carried out research amongst children and young people from Northern Ireland, England and Wales which found that:

• Eight out of ten children with a learning disability are bullied
• Eight out of ten are scared to go out because they are frightened they might be bullied
• Six out of ten children with a learning disability had been physically hurt by bullies
• Five out of ten children who had experienced bullying said that they stayed away from the places where they have been bullied in the past
• Four out of ten (36%) children surveyed said that the bullying didn’t stop when they told someone
• Three out of ten (27%) children surveyed were bullied for three years or more.

Mencap wants everyone to visit the anti bullying website www.dontstickit.org.uk to make an online ‘sticker’ and show support for children with a learning disability who are being bullied. The ‘stickers’ will then be used to show the government that action needs to be taken to stop children and young people with a learning disability being bullied.

Well being and self determination in older people

Dr John Copleton from Queen’s University Belfast will facilitate a seminar at the Institute of Governance on the relationship between self determination and well being in older people and will give an overview of his impending visit to the USA, where he will examine a number of initiatives aimed at improving the quality of life of older people.

The event takes place on 29 June 2007 with a sandwich lunch at 12.30pm.

The seminar will be participative in nature and is seen as an opportunity for people to establish links with other people working in the area of ageing.

If you would like to attend, please contact Una Lynch on 028 9097 3650 or email: u.lynch@qub.ac.uk.

Heritage Impact 2007

Do you work in the world of cultural heritage? Are you looking for ways to make better use of IT at your site? Are you keen to know how new technologies can enhance the visitor experience in your museums and cultural heritage sites? Or does your work involve working alongside cultural heritage professionals to advise them on improving the quality and appeal of their sites or museums?

Heritage Impact 2007 is the third international Symposium on the study of the socio-economic impact of cultural heritage. The event will take place from 21 to 22 June 2007 at the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, and will bring together key stakeholders who are working towards securing the future of our national cultural heritage.

To find out more please visitwww.heritageimpact.org, call 0127 364 2468 or email: epoch@brighton.ac.uk.

List your social economy events

Ulster Community Investment Trust Ltd (UCIT Ltd) is inviting organisations to submit events to a new social economy events calendar in its newsletter ‘FOCUS on Social Enterprise’. If your organisation has any news, events or announcements please send them to Trudi Dunbar by Friday 22 June 2007 - photographs are also welcome.

Press releases from rural community organisations are particularly welcome. The newsletter is distributed to nearly 3,000 contacts linked to the social economy including funders, councils, enterprise agencies, social enterprises and organisations working within the voluntary and community sector.

Contact Trudi on 028 9031 5003 or email: trudidunbar@ucitltd.com.

Active places NI

Active Places NI is a new interactive website of sports and recreational facilities in Northern Ireland. The Active Places NI website has been developed by Sport Northern Ireland to provide information on where people can take part in sport and physical activity in their local area or in their chosen sport/activity.

Active Places NI includes more than 5,500 individual sports and recreational facilities throughout Northern Ireland and incorporates district council leisure facilities, as well as club and commercial sites. The website will allow users to view detailed information on individual sports facilities, such as location, contact details, opening times and number/type of facilities available.

Visit www.sportni.net/activeplaces to find out more.

Summer fun for young film enthusiasts

Cinemagic is recruiting 20 young people aged 10 to 18, from all over Northern Ireland to take on the role of film consultants to help select the films for this year’s festival. The Coca-Cola Cinemagic World Screen Festival for Young People will take place in Belfast and surrounding areas from 16 November to 2 December 2007. The award winning festival will be action packed with over one hundred film screenings including special premieres, international features, documentaries, shorts, foreign language films, industry masterclasses and competitions.

Over the course of a three day workshop beginning on Monday 2 July 2007 the young consultants will work with the film programmer and the Cinemagic team to help steer the choice of films for the festival, as they watch and critique films from around the globe.

If you are a young budding film critic or you know anyone who would enjoy the opportunity to spend three days from Monday 2 July to Wednesday 4 July working with Cinemagic in Belfast, this is a fantastic opportunity to meet other like-minded young people, and have fun deciding the content of the largest film festival for young people in Northern Ireland and the UK.

Please contact Claire Baxter at Cinemagic, email: claire@cinemagic.org.uk to find out more.

Office Giveaways

Got some furniture or equipment to donate (or going cheap) to a voluntary or community group? Use this space to let people know what you’ve got.

Creative Events (NI) Ltd has a Canon GP225 photocopier available to donate to a voluntary or community group. For details, please contact Anne or Jacqueline on 028 9023 5001 or email: info@creativeevents.co.uk.

Pick of the Websites

Regeneration awards looking for entries

Do you know an outstanding community inspired regeneration project that deserves national recognition?

Only acting together can solve crisis

On the day that submissions on the Draft Climate Change Bill were closed, NICVA decided to show the film 'An Inconvenient Truth'

Housing Associations can ease crisis

Northern Ireland Federation of Housing Associations (NIFHA) fully supports the call by Margaret Ritchie for additional funding to build more houses

Make Your Move – new jobs this week on communityni.org

This section contains a random selection of the latest jobs from the CommunityNI website.

• Communications Coordinator at Cliftonville Community Regeneration Forum
• Project Manager at NI Association for Mental Health Belfast
• Chaperone at Youth Music Theatre
• Training and Development Officer at NI Anti Poverty Network

Submit your job - eNews does not carry full job advertisements, but if you would like your job to be one of the featured links, please submit your advertisement to the CommunityNI website using this link.

As the featured link slot is in great demand, to keep things fair, we can only make a random selection of three or four new jobs each week, and cannot guarantee that your job will be selected.

CommunityNI Diary

NICVA’s successful Community Diary now has a new home on the CommunityNI web portal. Submit details of your upcoming events in CommunityNI’s Events Calendar at www.communityni.org/index.cfm/section/events.

Simply follow the Submit an Event link to the right of the page, enter the details, and we’ll do the rest.

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Community Buyer

Communitybuyer.org has been connecting the voluntary and community sector with top suppliers since March 2007.

Communitybuyer.org is an online directory of products and services specially for the voluntary and community sector. With ratings and advice it’s an essential resource for your buying needs. Only companies that have a keen interest in working with the voluntary and community sector are listed and great discounts are available to NICVA members. Look out for the NICVA member discounts badge on the site.

To find out more, visit www.communitybuyer.org.

Membership

NICVA membership is open to all voluntary and community organisations in Northern Ireland.

To find out more contact Frances McAtamney on tel: 028 9087 7777, email: frances.mcatamney@nicva.orgor visit the website www.nicva.org/index.cfm/section/article/page/NICVAmembership.

The opinions, views or comments in this email do not necessarily reflect any views or policies of NICVA. In making information available from other organisations NICVA is not endorsing, privileging or guaranteeing its accuracy but acting as an information conduit in good faith.