Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations

Introduction

CEMVO S E Region had the opportunity to organise a funding event, so that voluntary and community groups would be able to attend to receive potential funding information and network with other groups and funders. CEMVO would also be able to promote its work as an organisation as well as encouraging groups to work in partnerships.

The purpose

• The main purpose of the funding event was to promote CEMVO South East Region to groups, funders, local authorities etc. In Slough, Berkshire CEMVO was not known until this event took place.
• To discuss and promote the ‘Capacity Building Programme’ to groups as we were able to recruit groups for next year.
• To support groups with funding issues/concerns and to identify potential funders for the many groups.

How it was organised

The event was organised by the 3 CBO’s based in the S E Region. The CBO came together to draft a programme for the event and potential topic areas for discussion, work was equally distributed and undertaken. Potential speakers were contacted.

The venue was identified as Baylis House in Slough and was provisionally booked. RAISE was contacted and were very keen to be part of the event and were keen to fund the entire event and so a partnership was developed.

After many meetings with RAISE, we drafted a final plan, numbers to attend, costing, funders to attend, and time-table for speakers.

The publicity undertaken

A booking form was produced with a flier and emailed to groups and potential partners. Following this a telephone call was made to the groups a day before the event as a last minute reminder.

Partnership

The main partner involved with this event was RAISE, who as mentioned was very keen to support CEMVO S E Region for this event. The S E CBO’s kept in discussion with RAISE making sure that the programme of events was suitable to the delegates.

Funders who attended

The main funding bodies who attended and spoke to the groups were:

1. Reading Borough Council
2. Berkshire LSC
3. Berkshire Community Fund
4. Heritage Lottery Fund

The number of organisations attending

Approximately, 48 organisations attended the event which was a great success, as CEMVO is now known in Slough as well as most of the areas of the S E region.

Drawback to learn from

• As CEMVO was the lead on this event. We had very little publicity material other than a 2 page information sheet.
• CEMVO needs to produce promotional material e.g. folders to insert papers used at such events.
• CEMVO needs to produce pens with logo, key-rings etc.
• CBO’s do not have any ‘Business Cards’ to hand to partners, groups etc.
• It would be useful to have a CEMVO stand, which can close up into a case and can be carried to events. We may be able to get funding to purchase this from Berkshire LSC.