February 2011 Blog Posts (7)

Last night I had the pleasure of travelling down to one of my favourite places, Hexham, for the launch of the new Encounter group for Fellows in the area.  It was a very enjoyable evening of discussion and networking which will be the starting point of a new resource for Fellows in the area.  Big thanks are due to Bob Hull for initiating and driving the event, and to Claire Maxwell, RSA NE Chair, for supporting it and, most crucially, to those Fellows who came along.

The event…

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Trustee candidate Suzy Walton will be speaking on Woman's Hour on BBC 4 on Tuesday the 15th of February, on whether women are more risk averse than men. Suzy is standing in the current Trustee elections, on a shared platform with three other candidates; Don Pinchbeck, Ted Fowler and Wiard Sterk. If you have not yet made up your mind, this is a good opportunity to hear one of the candidates first hand before your vote.

I was interested to read Matthew’s blog about his day yesterday and the impact it had in giving him a positive boost.  Working for a progressive, forward-thinking organisation like the RSA it is easy to sometimes presume that every working day must be a frenetic stramash of world-changing ideas, inspirational figures and jaw dropping enthusiasm.  Some days it’s not quite like that, the burdens…

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I firstly wanted to say thank you all the responses to the blog post I put out on Monday looking for potential partners for the SimpleCRB project. Everyone can see the potential of the RSA Fellowship, but we sometimes find it difficult to realise that potential in practical ways. From the blog post I had emails/comments from about 9 Fellows who had ideas or wanted to support the project, so thank you very much for responding so positively and quickly!

 

It was with this fresh…

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Dear Fellows,

 

The Trustee elections are now in full swing and the selection of Governance Advisory Group members is also in progress, following the vote to accept Rudi Plaut's motion at the AGM. This promises significant developments and clarification in the governance structures for the RSA at national and regional level, encouraging engagement of Fellows and hopefully re-engagement of some that felt discouraged in the past. Cliched or not, as with the rest of life you get…

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I have been working in Cornwall on a social enterprise project - which will open this Autumn - Heartlands - and fellow Fellows might want to hear about it - especially those styled social entrepreneurs.

On a 15 acre site at Pool (north west Cornwall) this £35 million development includes a park, new village centre, energy generation systems, children's centre, visitor centre, artists studios, live work units, new market squares and…

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Last week I met with Anna Pearson who has been developing a number of marvellous projects to encourage volunteering. One these is SimpleCRB which, as the name suggests, aims to reduced the hassle, cost and time of current CRB.  The project is at system build stage and the project is looking for a partner (local authority, university, voluntary organisation) who do an excess 3,000 per annum to move this valuable project forward.  More detail below.... please contact me…

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