Your work
The Assembly can help the work of your organisation by:
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helping to keep you informed and involved in planning and policy decisions
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promoting dialogue and partnership working between the voluntary and community sector (VCS) and public sector partners
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building the strategic capacity of the VCS, facilitating networking and enabling the sharing of skills, information, experience, good practice and resources
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ensuring that the strengths of the VCS are known and promoted and that weaknesses are understood, identified and addressed
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ensuring that VCS nominated representation on key strategic partnership bodies is active and effective.
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supporting the implementation of the Gloucestershire Compact and delivering it especially in the VCS.
To keep informed and become involved you can
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sign up to receive regular email bulletins from the Assembly Team on issues that are relevant to your organisation and/or receive the weekly general gloshub bulletin
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attend an Assembly event
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attend an Assembly VCS thematic group meeting
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attend the Assembly annual event
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observe an Assembly Board meeting
If you are interested you can also put yourself forward as a VCS representative. A VCS representative is a nominated/agreed VCS person who reflects the views of the wider VCS to inform decision-making processes.
A VCS representative
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is nominated and agreed by wider VCS via the Assembly
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attends multi-sector partnership meetings as representative from a VCS Strategy Group (e.g. Gloucestershire Environment Partnership and VCS Environment Strategy Group)
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attends and feeds back to the VCS Strategy Group and wider VCS (= the ‘constituency’)
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is briefed, trained and supported by the Assembly Team
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does not represent their own individual agency
A well organised, authoritative, VCS voice enables partners
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to listen to the voice of the wider VCS not just individual agencies
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use the experience, knowledge, and skills of the wider VCS to help design and deliver more effective services;
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use wider VCS links with communities to tackle difficult problems or deliver changes in attitude/behaviour;
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strengthen relationships between public agencies
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co-ordinate services
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link with the external funding, assets, volunteers and other resources that the VCS brings
If you are interested in finding out more about being a VCS representative contact Roisin Harte.
Thematic Groups
The Gloucestershire Assembly currently has four thematic Strategy Groups, which provide an arena for the VCS to meet to influence the planning and delivery of services related to its particular theme in Gloucestershire, and to provide a voice for voluntary and community organisations working in this area.
These groups form part of the structure of the Gloucestershire Assembly for the VCS, which itself aims to strengthen and support the VCS in Gloucestershire by providing a strategic voice for the sector.
Membership of all the Strategy Groups is open to any voluntary and community organisation working with, or with an interest in this area of work in Gloucestershire. By joining a Strategy Group, your organisation will be added to an email list so that you can receive targeted information of relevance to the issue about policy developments, meetings and consultations. Most of the Strategy Groups meet once a quarter with email information being disseminated in between these meetings.
The Strategy Groups currently are:
Economic, Skills, Employment and Worklessness
In addition to these groups, the Assembly also supports the
You can receive information on work relating to any of these groups by signing up to the targeted email communications or the Gloshub bulletin.
