Those of you kind enough to read my earlier Blog of 1,000 Posts will be pleased to know that this new Blog will contain only occasional postings.
2009 brought little joy: our Chair and our Vice President died, and we lost two valued members of staff through redundancy. But behind the scenes we have all worked hard to put things in place for a better 2010.
Early in 2010, the mywatford.net website revamp will be completed and will offer new information channels to make it much easier for people to access the information they want.
Thanks to Herts County Council Adult Care Services, we will be piloting a Time Bank to engage with vulnerable adults to see if this can help people to remain independent of statutory support services than might otherwise be the case. This will involve a major re-think on our traditional "Volunteer Centre" approach to volunteering. We will be looking to add value to the activities of local partners, and if we are successful there is a chance the model will be developed across Hertfordshire.
With funding from the One Watford Local Strategic Partnership, we will also put our shoulders to the wheel to create a Community Assembly for Watford. If successful, many more people will feel empowered to influence local decision-making. The project will also see the creation of a new sub-committee of the Local Strategic Partnership to oversee developments and activities around the voluntary sector, equalities, empowerment and engagement. Another feature of the project is the creation of a Voluntary Sector Resource Centre to provide new and small voluntary groups with practical support (IT, telephones, photocopiers). This is all very exciting.
We are also of course negotiating our relocation from The Parade out to the Holywell Community Centre. I am convinced that the move will deliver significant benefits for Watford CVS, for our member organisations, for the groups that use the Holywell Community Centre, and for the local residents. But this is a big change for everyone and there are many risks and dangers: we must keep focused on the job in hand. And in the summer we hope to host the climax of Watford LIVE! 2010 at the Holywell.
Meanwhile, the full impact of the recession has yet to be felt in the statutory and voluntary sectors. It will make itself felt in 2010. Through all of the above, we will have a General Election and a new government looking to reduce expenditure by any means possible. Our member groups will seek to deal with the consequences of reducing statutory services while finding it harder and harder to sustain their income levels.
But if we all work together we will emerge at the end of 2010 a stronger and better community.