New Year’s Resolution no. 2: making a mark as a trustee

One of the best things I’ve done this year is become a trustee of a charity. I’ve been a trustee before, many years ago for Children’s Rights Alliance for England, which was a great experience and helped me learn about what’s involved in running an organisation. But that was a very different organisation and a very different situation. My current trustee role is offering challenges and opportunities that I couldn’t get anywhere else. The next step for me is to do something amazing with that.

I’m a trustee of Croft House Settlement, a community venue with a long history and a small turnover. I was attracted to it first because I’m a voluntary action history nerd; the settlement movement in the late 19^th and early 20^th century brought services into poor communities to tackle poverty and offer education and support to those who would otherwise struggle to get it. Toynbee Hall is one of the most famous and is still running fantastic services today. The movement is rooted in Christian philanthropy, and Croft House was established in 1902 by the Rev. William Blackshaw in an area of poor housing and poverty in Sheffield. After a period of decline, it was resurrected in the late 1980s by a marching band looking for a new home, and has been home to it and a range of other dance, music and theatre groups ever since.

The existing trustee board was looking for a refresh and reached out through Do-It for anyone interested. It got the kind of shock that it wanted; a group of new trustees that brought a different age and gender demographic to the group, that had new ideas and different perspectives to contribute and that could (and fully intend to) help to develop and improve Croft House Settlement, whilst respecting its history and its existing dedicated user group. Already we’ve set out plans for developing a full strategy based on three overarching areas; the building, the branding and the community. These will link together to make crucial improvements to the physical space, some parts of which are in desperate need of refurbishment, to listen to and make the most of service users, creating and embedding a real community, and getting the message out to new organisations and customers, boosting business and helping financial sustainability.

My interest is in the community. In taking the time to examine what I like and what I’m good at during my year as a Charityworks Graduate Trainee, I realised that what I really enjoy is building links between different people and different organisations, and creating something – an idea, a service, a space – that they can really buy into. Listening to existing users is key to this, for me; the service users of Croft House Settlement will be able to explain what they like (and what they dislike) about the place than I ever can, because they use it, week in, week out. It’s as simple as that. They have to be a key part in making it better, and in bringing more people in. Using those existing networks, I hope, will be a great way of bringing in new communities and customers.

So, the New Year’s Resolution beneath all of this involves developing some new skills for myself as well as being a part of developing a whole organisation. I want the building to get the investment it deserves. I want it to have a solid strategy for organisational development in place. And I want it to embody a sense of community; be guided by it, and make the most of it as an asset. My resolution is to be a part of making all of this happen.

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Resolution no. 1: supporting equality in football

This blog is part of my New Year’s Resolution series. More to come…

Trigger Warning: Discussion of misogyny, rape and racism.

As a football supporter, this year has been an interesting and difficult one for me. In the first of my ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ I talk about losing faith with the teams I followed, and finding it in equality-based football.

I remember the first ever football match I went to; Sheffield United versus Leicester, at Bramall Lane, with my Grandpa and Uncle Duncan. We won, but Leicester had already secured promotion to the league above, and four-year-old-me thought this was deeply unfair.

I remember the best football match I’ve ever been to; Celtic versus Barcelona, Champions League group stages, 2012, Celtic Park, with my one of my best friends, Liam. It was the 125th anniversary game. Celtic won. I have never experienced anything like it before or since.

These are teams that I have loved – Celtic since I adopted them and the City of Glasgow 6 years ago, Sheffield United since I first knew what football was. And these are both teams that in the past year I have decided to leave behind.

This story sits with three players; Lee Griffiths and Aleksandar Tonev of Celtic, and Ched Evans, formerly of Sheffield United. Griffiths and Tonev have both been pulled up for racist language and behaviour in the past year. In Griffiths’ case, he was caught on video being racist. Celtic did nothing. Tonev was accused of using racist language towards Shay Logan, and was punished by the Scottish Football Association for doing so with a 7-game ban. Celtic appealed the case, repeatedly refuted the accusation, and, at when the appeal collapsed this week, said that they would continue to give him his full support despite the judgement that, on the balance of probabilities, he had been racist (this article from BBC Scotland’s Tom Evans discusses why Celtic’s position is problematic better than I can). Ched Evans, in a case covered heavily by the English press, was convicted of rape and secured early release this October. After months of silence, Sheffield United released a statement saying that Evans would return to training with the club, then swiftly changed their minds as high-profile board members expressed their disappointment. 

I believe that these clubs have a responsibility to all of their fans, including those of all different genders, ethnicities, sexualities and religious beliefs. I believe that a club has a responsibility to set an example and hold all of its players to a standard, regardless of how popular they are or how many goals they score. I believe that they have chosen to disregard this responsibility. Neil Lennon, former Celtic manager, said in 2012 that any form of racism is “an instant sackable offence” at his club. These words seem increasingly empty. Hearing stories of fans chanting “he’s Ched Evans and he does what he likes” does not give me any confidence that Bramall Lane is a safe and inclusive space for women. Neither does the “fan” reaction to Jess Ennis’ and Charlie Webster’s opposition to letting Evans train with the team. And, finally, neither does Sheffield United’s petulant statement after it was forced into a u-turn by the level of press attention. The club’s attitude and approach sets the tone for the team and the support. If discriminatory, harmful and violent behaviour is accepted at the top, then it is deemed acceptable at every level.

So, what options are there for a football fan looking for a new club?

There are football teams in this country, and in many other countries, that campaign for and live by the rule of equality. These are the teams that I support. This year, I have had the pleasure of seeing Babelsberg 03 play near Berlin, visiting the St. Pauli ground in Hamburgh and, most recently, attending an away game in the middle of nowhere with Clapton FC, an East London anti-fascist team playing in the Essex Senior League. At this last match, I was flying the flag for my other adopted Scottish team, United Glasgow, along with two other supporters (one of whom plays for the women’s team). I am proud to support United Glasgow, because I can see the difference that it makes. It lives and breathes its equalities ethos. It has grown beyond its original purpose as a semi-regular football club for refugees, asylum seekers and those excluded for financial or other reasons who want to play football, and now brings people from all kinds of backgrounds together on common ground, promoting better understanding of issues faced and shared by different communities. The Men’s 11s are currently fourth in the Scottish Unity League, and the Women’s 5s team have just been confirmed as champions of their league for the second year in a row. 

Playing and following sport can be a powerful tool in bringing people together, but only if clubs really embrace an ethos of anti-discrimination. It is commendable and good to fly a flag for anti-racism, anti-homophobia, anti-sexism and so on, but clubs need to fly these flags all the time, rather than when it is convenient, or when it does not harm profits.

So, resolution number 1 for the New Year: to campaign for equality in and through football (and hopefully other sports as well). My actions include:

• find and get involved with my local community football team (here in Sheffield it is Football Unites Racism Divides),
• Sign up for a Women’s Aid Season Ticket as part of their campaign: Football United Against Domestic Violence,
• and support, promote and campaign for initiatives, like Football v Homophobia‘s month of action in February 2015 (#FvH2015 on twitter), that seek to raise standards in mainstream clubs.

What will you do?

The Local Authority: That’s all folks? A call for evidence

This is one of the most common messages I hear when I’m out and about from local infrastructure organisations (LIOs), such as Councils for Voluntary Service (CVS):

 We’ve lost funding from the local authority already. We’re expecting to lose a lot more.

 Here’s why:

This is the so-called local government Graph of Doom (a term coined by Barnet Council), which shows that whilst the cost of adult social care is rising, overall budgets are falling. This means that the pot of ‘money for everything else’ – culture, leisure, voluntary sector services, and any other ‘added value’ activity – is getting ever smaller. This graph is starting to become a bit of a cliché, but an important one, as its message is repeated across the country by voluntary and public sector officials alike.

In my capacity as Charityworks Graduate Trainee, although with obvious links to my work with NAVCA, I am currently researching and writing a report about the impact of these cuts on LIOs around the country. There has been much good work done by NCVO and others on mapping current and predicting future cuts. I want to use this information together with income data breakdowns showing grants and contracts from statutory sources, lifted from LIO annual reports, to say something about the financial reality over the past few years.

But alongside this, I want to put out a call to you, dear readers, for your stories. From my visits and interviews, not to mention my analysis of the Transforming Local Infrastructure programme for NAVCA, I’m already aware that there is a huge amount of variation across the country. Some have already lost all local authority funding, others have been able to secure funding agreements for the next few years, and more still are bracing themselves for punitive future budgets. I’m also aware that much has been done to build relationships in other areas, such as health, housing, and with private sector partners. I have also heard examples of successful work to redefine relationships with local authorities, and I am sure there are more.

So whether you’re fearing cuts or have already been through them, or are responsible for making them, if you’ve been successful in finding alternative income sources or are struggling with sustainability, if you’re from an LIO, a local authority or another voluntary and community organisation, I want to hear from you. What are your expectations? What are your solutions? And, ultimately, why are these changes important (if, indeed, they are)?

You can get in touch here through the comments section, or over email (ellie.munro@navca.org.uk), and I will,of course, respect any requests for anonymity. You can even tweet your key messages to @elmunro, with the hashtag #LIOfuture, if you’re that way inclined. This will be a crucial issue for many of you, and I want my research to be as useful as possible, so get in touch.