Council of Ethnic Minority Voluntary Sector Organisations

The conference had the following aims:-

• Raising the profile of CEMVO in southeast.
• Developing and strengthening further the relationships built over one year period of capacity building work.
• An opportunity for recruiting new groups for the year two of the capacity buildings work commencing July 2005.
• Part of our marketing and communications strategy to inform stakeholder partners of our Capacity building work in the region.
• An opportunity for creating networks and alliances between the funders and BME voluntary sector organisation representatives and exploration of how best the BME VSO can fe financially resourced to effectively deliver services.

How the conference was organised:

The conference organisation was very complex. It necessitated dynamic strategic planning. Consideration was given to the following areas:

• The conference topics i.e capacity building and operating for sustainability, social enterprise, change up and the funding themes.
• The costing for the event.
• Who would benefit from the conference.
• How many people would attend the conference.
• Who would fund the event given the fact that CEMVO team in southeast did not have budget for it.
• Who would be our reliable partners and to what extent would we rely on them?
• How we would market the event ie. Through voluntary sector organisations, stakeholder partners and Internet and websites.
• How we would guarantee that we achieved our target numbers i.e through booking confirmation forms.
• Which venue would be the most ideal to hoist the event in the southeast?

The Publicity undertaken.

We developed a marketing flier suitable to achieving our aims. This flier was circulated through stakeholder partner websites, the emails and the post. For details see the appendices to the event.

Our partners:

• REGIONAL ACTION INVOLVEMENT FOR SOUTH EAST (RAISE) was our active partner. Their role was as follows:
  • Held a series of meetings to ensure everything was going according to plan.
  • RAISE agreed to finance the entire event i.e paid for all resources, venue and meals for the guest’s participants.
• Reading Borough council.
• Berkshire learning and skills council.
• Berkshire community foundation.
• Heritage lottery fund.
• European social fund (ESF) as dictated by raise in our marketing information.
• South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), as dictated by raise in our marketing Information.

The Funders Involved were:

• Reading Borough council.
• Berkshire learning and skills council.
• Berkshire community foundation
• Heritage lottery fund.

The number of organisations attended this event: 48