*[UPDATE 26 October 2015] We have postponed the Realising The Value conference to 4 March 2016. We are building on your feedback to make this an invaluable resource and unmissable opportunity to strengthen your organisation for 2016 onwards.
Now booking!
Realising The Value conference
*Friday 4 March 2016, 9:30am to 4pm
Kesgrave Community Centre
“The day I told my boss to shut up and listen” is one of the thought-provoking key note speeches making an appearance at our next conference, “Realising The Value”
Other unusual workshops and presentations will include:
- Do commissioners dream of electric sheep?
- What funders want; really, really want…from a successful application
- Slaying Trolls and dispelling myths
All workshops will be practical, challenging, interactive and designed to give participants the opportunity to learn and apply the learning to their organisations.
Realising the Value conference is for:
- Staff, trustees and volunteers of voluntary and community organisations
- Parish and Town Councils
- Community Activists
- Community Development Workers
- Anyone in the statutory sector who is working directly with communities
Why should I attend this conference?
Do you want to:
- learn about measuring impact
- explore opportunities for collaboration and forming consortia
- digital solutions and using social media
- how to maximise and diversify your income
- be prepared to respond effectively to commissioning to support your organisations sustainability?
If so, this capacity building conference is for you. We will be building on some of the things discussed at the Grow Your Community conference as well as some other topics but will be doing so in much more depth including practical things that can help your organisation. The conference will demonstrate how we can realise our value, identify hidden assets and strengthen our organisations and the communities we support together.
As well as the intriguing workshops, we will have local and national key note speakers.
Book your place today
If you need to pay by cheque, or receive an invoice prior to making payment, you can still use the form below and reserve your place(s).
For more information contact [email protected] or 01473 345400
Conference programme
- 9:30am Registration and coffee
- 10:00 Welcome and introduction to the day Jacqui Wilkinson, Community Action Suffolk
- 10:05 Opening address Cllr Sarah Stamp, SCC Cabinet Member Communities
- 10:15 Keynote: Absorbing reality and valuing our currency – Kathy Evans, Chief Executive, Children England
Kathy will explore some of the national trends and challenges facing the voluntary and community sector, and will offer ideas for positive ways forward based on re-evaluating and taking pride in the sector’s unique strengths. - 10:45 Key topic: Thinking differently! – Richard Selwyn, Assistant Director Commissioning, Children, young people’s services, Suffolk County Council
How thinking differently can maximise opportunities for working together and realising the value of our services. - 11:00 Key topic: Social value and investment: Not just a one way street – Sue Lowe, Policy Manager, Local Intelligence Team, Office for Civil Society, Cabinet Office
Sue will provide an overview of social investment, what it means and how partners and commissioners can work together to make this effective. - 11:15 Coffee and networking
- 11:45 Q&A CAS
- 11:55 Workshops: Session 1 (see below)
- 1pm Lunch
- 1:45 Do commissioners dream of electric sheep? – Simon Glenister, Noise Solution
Using simple IT solutions, such as blogging, to capture the impacts of your work can make the difference between getting commissioned or not. Noise Solution has been using blogging as part of its toolkit since 2009 in its work with people `on the margins. This short demonstration highlights our award-winning practice in this area. - 2.05 The day I told my boss to shut up and listen – SCC’s social media journey – Matt Woor, Social Media Channel Manager, Suffolk County Council
How Suffolk County Council went from an organisation that hated social media and went out of its way to block it – to a place where its use as an engagement tool is the new “big thing”. - 2:20 Workshops: Session 2 (see below)
- 3.30 What funders want; really, really want… from a successful application – Wendy Herber, Suffolk Community Foundation
An opportunity to hear about funding updates and what has been achieved in Suffolk and an insight into what funders look for. - 3.45 Summary and close ‘Gift of time’ award Jacqui Wilkinson, CAS
Conference workshops
Workshop A: ‘Inspiring Social Impact’
Fran Bedding, Suffolk County Council
REALISE Futures
Rural Coffee Caravan
The Coffee Caravan and REALISE Futures will be sharing their experiences of identifying social value. Attendees will hopefully leave the conference inspired and with the confidence to approach things in a different way. We want to inspire organisations to start thinking about how they deliver outcomes and how they can demonstrate the value of these effectively – through working with commercial and public sector. Often in ways that they have not tried before.
Workshop B: “Consorting with the Enemy – Competition or Collaboration?”
Exploring opportunities for collaboration and consortia to ensure sustainability
Hannah Reid, Community Action Suffolk
Rachel Jennings, Enable East
Conference Centre
This workshop will give you a ‘how to’ approach to working in partnership and forming consortia. Taking you through best practise processes and key responsibilities of partners; you will leave feeling ready to analyse your organisation’s reasons for collaboration and with a clear approach to getting started.
Rachel Jennings will provide a case study on how Enable East have become successful in leading consortia and attracting funding promote sustainability and embed partnership working across their organisation.
Workshop C: Slaying Trolls and dispelling myths
Presented by: Matt Woor – Social Media Channel Manager, Suffolk County Council
Facilitated by: Liz Moss, Suffolk County Council
Social media creates its own myths and barriers in people’s minds about reasons why they and their organisations can’t engage with it – in this workshop we will discuss problems you may have and hopefully show, with real life examples, how even small changes can dispel those myths and break those barriers.
Before you come along it will be helpful to think about what issues or problems you think exist which have stopped or hindered your organisations use of social media – or if you think your social media approach is working great – please come along to help slay the trolls and myths experienced by others.
Key features of this workshop:
- Open discussion around your problems with social media
- Crowd sourcing solutions to issues from others in the workshop
- Discussion around the most common social media barriers and some potential solutions
- Some real life examples of how Social Media has worked for the Voluntary, Public and Private sector
- Approaching the creation of content in the right way.
Workshop D: How to maximise your income generation world
Sue Lowe, Cabinet Office
An interactive workshop with a practical application for groups to drill down into how they can maximise their income. Topics to be covered:
- Social investment
- Trading activities
- Grant Making Trusts
- Community fundraising
Workshop E: Be Ready – How to successfully respond to competitive grants, quotes and tenders
Presented & facilitated by:
Katrina Browning, Procurement Manager, Suffolk County Council
Tina Hines, Head of Commissioning and Partnership
How to be ready to compete with other organisations for funding to deliver services, the workshop will include:
- Being ready to bid – what can you do in advance to prepare
- Delivering the outcomes – you know you can do it but how do you evidence that you can deliver the outcomes
- Recognising your value – where your adding value and may not recognise it, the social value benefits you can bring to your bid