Town's voluntary groups to elect members to One Haverhill
Tuesday, 19th April 2011.
Voluntary organisations in Haverhill are in the process of voting for who will represent them on the new group which is set to replace Haverhill Partnership.
One Haverhill is a new board that will bring together a range of stakeholders including all three tiers of local government, the business sector, police, health and others to improve the quality of life for people in Haverhill.
The board is seeking to appoint two representatives who can represent the voluntary and community sector in the town and work collaboratively with partners to achieve improved outcomes for Haverhill.
The deadline for self-nominations has now passed and now the voluntary and community sector has to vote for who they would like to fill the two vacancies.
Those who have put themselves forward for consideration have put together a short resumee of why they would be good representatives.
Elaine Hewes and Lyn Burgess of Haverhill Volunteer Centre and Three Counties Transport, say: "We have good communication with volunteers and the voluntary organisations working within the Haverhill area. We attend meetings that are relevant to the voluntary sector within Haverhill and across the county. We send out a quarterly newsletter to 500 volunteers and voluntary organisations, and this enables us to consult with our volunteers and organisations. This would also enable us to keep all members informed on the work ONE Haverhill is involved in. We have over 20 years' experience of working in the voluntary sector in a fair and open manner."
Michael Simpkin, of Haverhill Association of Voluntary Organisations, says: "As the existing VCS Organisation representative on the Haverhill Partnership, we are confident that we have the experience and practise at representing the wishes of the VCS groups in and around Haverhill. We have much experience in attending seminars, conferences, consultations and the like all over our region and have the ear of important contacts in all sectors of our community. Our values and charitable objects are to provide a strong voice for our sector to enhance its impact and to further the aims and objectives of the sector organisations we serve. With the Big Society and the new Localism Bill soon to become a reality, it is imperative that our sector has an organisation with our expertise and experience so as to ensure our sector members have the finest representation, have the ear of the ‘movers and shakers' and decision-makers to give our sector the best possible chances of influencing in a positive way the decisions those people make that can affect our lives. We believe this is OUR town for OUR citizens – especially those citizens that both work and, more importantly, volunteer their time to the multitude of good causes that our sector works with. We will work tirelessly to put our sector's case that will influence the decision-makers when anything that can affect the lives of the good people of Haverhill is being worked on. Our attendance record at both the Haverhill Partnership Executive Group meetings and the Haverhill Partnership Forum meetings is almost 100 per cent. We have always made positive contributions that have either agreed with others or have altered decisions made that have then benefited our community. Through mail-outs and our monthly newsletter we have made every effort to ensure the decisions made by our partnership have been communicated to the VC Sector. We have always championed (as stated above) the partnership during our time as VCS Representative. Whenever we have made the case for decisions to go one way or another or, in other cases in a totally different way, we have communicated this through our newsletter to our members in the VC Sector. We have also been open to both positive and negative criticism at our annual general meetings and thus have been open to public scrutiny. We will continue to use the medium of our newsletter to actively seek the views of the sector plus using the letters pages on the two local newspapers on a regular basis. We will also use mail-outs to explain in detail issues being faced by the town seeking our sector's views and opinions on such matters. We also have our website www.havo.org.uk which all our communication will be transcribed to. Where a full mandate to issue views that will influence issues being decided upon that might affect our members we will actively seek the views of those members and even if differing views are reported to us, all views will be put to One Haverhill in a collated manner so as to give One Haverhill leaders all the information they need to make informed decisions. All decisions of One Haverhill will be communicated in a timely way to our member organisations."
Alexander Keep, of the British Red Cross, says: "By being an active service delivery volunteer. Leader of a multi-task group involved in social welfare and community resilience. Networking on a daily basis with all agencies, statutory and voluntary."
Henry Wilson, of REACH Community Projects, says: "I have a passion for Haverhill, I have been a resident all my life and ran a small business in the town for a number of years and have a desire to see community engagement across all levels of society. I have a strategic role in a growing organisation in Haverhill that seeks to tackle issues of poverty and hardship amongst some of the poorest families in town (and backed up with a strong team of committed volunteers). Although I lead a busy organisation, I am available for daytime meetings as well as evening meetings where necessary. I work well to deadlines."
Voting is by visiting http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BMTCTMK (you can only vote once), and the closing date is May 12.
One Haverhill is a new board that will bring together a range of stakeholders including all three tiers of local government, the business sector, police, health and others to improve the quality of life for people in Haverhill.
The board is seeking to appoint two representatives who can represent the voluntary and community sector in the town and work collaboratively with partners to achieve improved outcomes for Haverhill.
The deadline for self-nominations has now passed and now the voluntary and community sector has to vote for who they would like to fill the two vacancies.
Those who have put themselves forward for consideration have put together a short resumee of why they would be good representatives.
Elaine Hewes and Lyn Burgess of Haverhill Volunteer Centre and Three Counties Transport, say: "We have good communication with volunteers and the voluntary organisations working within the Haverhill area. We attend meetings that are relevant to the voluntary sector within Haverhill and across the county. We send out a quarterly newsletter to 500 volunteers and voluntary organisations, and this enables us to consult with our volunteers and organisations. This would also enable us to keep all members informed on the work ONE Haverhill is involved in. We have over 20 years' experience of working in the voluntary sector in a fair and open manner."
Michael Simpkin, of Haverhill Association of Voluntary Organisations, says: "As the existing VCS Organisation representative on the Haverhill Partnership, we are confident that we have the experience and practise at representing the wishes of the VCS groups in and around Haverhill. We have much experience in attending seminars, conferences, consultations and the like all over our region and have the ear of important contacts in all sectors of our community. Our values and charitable objects are to provide a strong voice for our sector to enhance its impact and to further the aims and objectives of the sector organisations we serve. With the Big Society and the new Localism Bill soon to become a reality, it is imperative that our sector has an organisation with our expertise and experience so as to ensure our sector members have the finest representation, have the ear of the ‘movers and shakers' and decision-makers to give our sector the best possible chances of influencing in a positive way the decisions those people make that can affect our lives. We believe this is OUR town for OUR citizens – especially those citizens that both work and, more importantly, volunteer their time to the multitude of good causes that our sector works with. We will work tirelessly to put our sector's case that will influence the decision-makers when anything that can affect the lives of the good people of Haverhill is being worked on. Our attendance record at both the Haverhill Partnership Executive Group meetings and the Haverhill Partnership Forum meetings is almost 100 per cent. We have always made positive contributions that have either agreed with others or have altered decisions made that have then benefited our community. Through mail-outs and our monthly newsletter we have made every effort to ensure the decisions made by our partnership have been communicated to the VC Sector. We have always championed (as stated above) the partnership during our time as VCS Representative. Whenever we have made the case for decisions to go one way or another or, in other cases in a totally different way, we have communicated this through our newsletter to our members in the VC Sector. We have also been open to both positive and negative criticism at our annual general meetings and thus have been open to public scrutiny. We will continue to use the medium of our newsletter to actively seek the views of the sector plus using the letters pages on the two local newspapers on a regular basis. We will also use mail-outs to explain in detail issues being faced by the town seeking our sector's views and opinions on such matters. We also have our website www.havo.org.uk which all our communication will be transcribed to. Where a full mandate to issue views that will influence issues being decided upon that might affect our members we will actively seek the views of those members and even if differing views are reported to us, all views will be put to One Haverhill in a collated manner so as to give One Haverhill leaders all the information they need to make informed decisions. All decisions of One Haverhill will be communicated in a timely way to our member organisations."
Alexander Keep, of the British Red Cross, says: "By being an active service delivery volunteer. Leader of a multi-task group involved in social welfare and community resilience. Networking on a daily basis with all agencies, statutory and voluntary."
Henry Wilson, of REACH Community Projects, says: "I have a passion for Haverhill, I have been a resident all my life and ran a small business in the town for a number of years and have a desire to see community engagement across all levels of society. I have a strategic role in a growing organisation in Haverhill that seeks to tackle issues of poverty and hardship amongst some of the poorest families in town (and backed up with a strong team of committed volunteers). Although I lead a busy organisation, I am available for daytime meetings as well as evening meetings where necessary. I work well to deadlines."
Voting is by visiting http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BMTCTMK (you can only vote once), and the closing date is May 12.
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