Sir Kenneth Branagh opens NICVA's 82nd AGM

With the coronavirus pandemic forcing all services and activities online this year, our AGM held on Friday 11 December 2020 was no different and took place over Zoom.

We were delighted to have Sir Kenneth Branagh join the event and his acknowledgement of how quickly the voluntary and community sector responded as the crisis unfolded to provide help to those most vulnerable and most threatened in our communities.

Hosting the event was NICVA Chair, Olwen Lyner, who highlighted how NICVA rapidly became an information hub for the sector through the NICVA website, CommunityNI and regular COVID news updates.

Olwen paid special tribute to Executive Committee member Anne Moore who sadly passed away in August this year and also to previous Committee members Audrey Murray who served 12 years on the NICVA board and Peter McBride, who stepped down as Chair to take up post in the US.

NICVA Chief Executive, Seamus McAleavey presented our Annual Report for the period (Apr 19 – Mar 20) touching on some of our key activities in supporting the sector, through accredited training, supporting coalitions and partnership working, our digital services and ongoing policy engagement with government - most notable was our position as communications lead for the sector on the COVID19 Emergency Leadership Group convened by the Department for Communities.

Following the formal AGM business, NICVA Executive Committee members, Charlene Brooks, Parenting NI, Michael Briggs, EBCDA and Denise Hayward, Volunteer Now all reflected on the year and on their future plans. A key area of focus was how they all adapted quickly harnessing digital to move services online but looking beyond this was the need to restart face to face services to support beneficiaries and also the need for human interaction with staff.

Our 2020 Annual Report and Financial Statements are available here.

Watch Kenneth Branagh’s opening address:

Kenneth Branagh welcome address at NICVA's AGM from NICVA on Vimeo.