Posts tagged: North East

North East’s most influential Twitter users

Twitter, the social media tool, is becoming an increasingly useful way to reach people of influence.  One retweet from an influential Twitter user can send your message through to thousands of followers, even go global.  With this in mind I have gathered a list here of who I believe to be the North East’s most [...]

The Single Work Programme – An Example of how one of the North East’s leading charity faired.

UPDATE: This case study was followed up and featured in The Guardian in September. The Open Public Services White Paper hails the Single Work Programme as a model that should be replicated in expanding public services delivery by the VCS. A leading Tees Valley based Charity that has been delivering employability services to individuals that [...]

Spiked by Child Poverty, Richer European Nations and the Coalition of Resistance – It’s all in a weeks work.

Child Poverty Not everyone shared my views on the BBC documentary “Poor Kids” – Brendan O’Neill is the editor of Spiked. Whilst I think he is ill informed on a number of levels, I offer you his view – which is that – so called child poverty doesn’t exist. “Poverty is no longer treated as [...]

A bridge to nowhere

It is brilliant news that over £4 million of Transition funding will go to North East Charities – this reflects the fact that Charities in the North East receive almost half of their income from the public sector and have therefore been hit hard by public sector spending cuts. This is why VONNE lobbied successfully [...]

Regional Growth Fund – £56 million allocated to 14 North East firms

Under the first round of the Regional Growth Fund, 50 bids by companies and partnerships to promote economic growth and create new jobs will be given financial support totalling £450 million from the Regional Growth Fund. The Government expects the £450m to lever in around £2.5bn of private sector investment. 14 organisations in the North [...]

Local charities making national headlines

It was great to see 2 local charities making national headlines this week. First up I spotted A Way Out, former VONNE award winners, in the Metro newspaper.  Their Chief Executive Jessie Joe Jacobs was warning that alcohol abuse may kill a growing number of women unless something is done to stop ‘crazily’ low drinks [...]

Something to take pride in.

Today we hosted a meeting with a delegation from the Rauma Street Mission or Rauman Seudun Katulähetysn as they are know in Finland.  They were on a learning visit to North East to look at how we support people into employment through activities such as volunteering. The delegation heard from Colette Harrison of the Ouseburn [...]

Every Little Helps

For many in the VCS it is a very challenging time.  Staff are being made redundant, demand on services has increased and is expected to rise and available funding has decreased. Today’s news that the Northern Rock Foundation’s funding is likely to be cut and faces an uncertain future will not ease the fears of [...]

A quadruple whammy!

Before Christmas, NETS(work), the Third Sector Learning Disability Provider Forum, was invited to speak on Look North about the impact of public sector cuts on people with a learning disability. Broadly speaking it looked like a triple whammy- cuts that impact on: Structural mainstream services that people use- transport, libraries, swimming pools Threats to benefits [...]

You had to be there….

Last night saw the latest meeting of the North East Chief Executives Forum, which was kindly hosted by UNW (A big thank you to Charles Linaker and his team). Last night’s meeting was slightly different than the previous ones I attended.  There was a lot more room for discussion about the issues faced by VCS organisations in [...]