VANEL Member News

Volunteers are hard at it, organising celebrations to mark the Diamond Jubilee.

If you want to know what’s going near you, check out the list below:

East Marsh: Friday 1st June,12-3pm @ Hope Street area
West Marsh: Saturday 2nd June, 1-5pm @ West Marsh Community Centre
Park: Sunday 3rd June, 11am-4pm@ People’s Park by Communities Together
Cleethorpes: Monday 4th June, 2pm – 5pm, @ Crow Hill Avenue
Immingham: Tuesday 5th June,10am-2pm @ Bert Boyden Centre. To be confirmed, contact Sylvia Leary on 01472 313535 for more information.
Laceby: 16th June, 1pm – 4pm @ Stanford School. Contact number: 01472 504921

Communities Together has for the first time in quite a while, moved into an office space.  The office is at Grimsby Institute in Nuns Corner, where principal, Sue Middlehurst has kindly arranged an office with desks and chairs and space from which the charity can operate.

This office has enabled us to have a base for the first time, which is crucial for the growth of the business.

The office houses three newly recruited volunteers who are assisting Communities Together in delivering on its objectives. The volunteers are located in the office on a rota basis, but the office is not open all of the time. So if you need to know when there is someone in the office, please feel free to contact us using our brand new email and we will reply to you.

If you’re not aware of the work of Communities Together, then get in contact so we can explain. We also have a new website under development where you can learn more.
Communities Together is a local membership group seeking to raise multi-cultural awareness and understanding across North East Lincolnshire.

www.nelcommunitiestogether.org.uk
comms2gether@gmail.com

Rural Voluntary and Community groups tend to be small, run by volunteers and on the whole, pretty self-sustaining, just like the communities they support. They raise most of the small amount of funding they need from their members, their community or small grants from their local Parish Council.
Mainly they just get on with supporting their communities, running playing fields and village halls, looking after their local older population, running sports clubs or organising activities for children in their village. They do from time to time, however, need some help or support to raise larger sums of money when the village hall needs repairs or maybe a new treasurer needs some help in learning the ropes.
And when this happens Voluntary Action North East Lincolnshire (VANEL) can help, for the past three years VANEL has worked with similar organisations in the East Riding and North Lincolnshire to provide the Rural Partnerships Plus project to support these groups, keep the busy community volunteers up to date and give them a voice. But now the project, funded by the Big Lottery, is drawing to an end. On Thursday May 17thRural Partnerships Plus will be holding a final conference at the Ropewalk in Barton to celebrate the achievements of the 400 plus groups which have contacted it over the past three years and to look at what will come next for those groups. Members of rural community groups or Parish Councils are invited to come along.

To find out more about the rural conference or support for rural community groups contact: celia@vanel.org.uk

VANEL are continuing to work towards a Healthy Workplace for our staff and volunteers—we’re currently aiming for our Bronze Award which we hope to achieve in the next couple of weeks.

We’re focusing on themes of “creating a safe and healthy workplace” and on “healthy eating”. You’ve seen our recipes already and our staff continue with our fresh veg box scheme each week. LINk staff tried to go caffeine free, staff are trying to drink more water and quite a few staff have been involved in lunchtime ativities such as walking (weather permitting!). Hopefully we’ll have news next month on our Bronze Award and whether VANEL is indeed a Healthy Workplace!

For more information, check out the Healthy Workplace website.

The LINk, hosted by VANEL, is working in partnership with North East Lincolnshire Council on the HealthWatch Pathfinder project.

Part of the new Health and Social Care Bill, HealthWatch will be the new consumer champion for both health and adult social care. There will be two levels: HealthWatch England at a national level and Local HealthWatch at the local level. The Local HealthWatch has to be in place no later than 1st April 2013.

The aim is that Local HealthWatch will be an independent organisation with the ability to influence and be an effective voice of the public, giving citizens and communities a stronger voice to influence and challenge how health and adult social care services are provided within North East Lincolnshire.

The LINk are currently holding consultations and workshops in the local area to both raise awareness of what the Local HealthWatch needs to achieve, according to the Department of Health, and giving citizens and organisations local to North East Lincolnshire the opportunity to have their say on the future roles and responsibilities of Local HealthWatch. Exploring what additional functions Local HealthWatch could perform, thus adding value and promoting better outcomes.

For our consultation dates or for more information, visit www.nellink.org.uk

It’s been a while since the VANEL Newsletters were posted on this blog.

So here’s the latest issue for May 2012.

Download the May 2012 edition here.

The February 2012 issue of the Restorative Practice newsletter can be downloaded from here.

Click here to download it.

The February 2012 issue of the VANEL newsletter can be downloaded from here.

Click here to download it.

The January 2012 issue of the VANEL newsletter can be downloaded from here.

Click here to download it.

The November 2011 issue of the VANEL newsletter can be downloaded from here.

Click here for the newsletter.