Nexus december 2017

NEWS FROM THE HAMPSHIRE CVS NETWORK 

Action Hampshire

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Nexus V O L U M E

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I S S U E

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D E C E M B E R

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Basingstoke Voluntary Action

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Community Christmas Tree Festival – Eastleigh Museum

Communities First Wessex

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Community Action Fareham

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Community First New Forest

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Gosport Voluntary Action

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Hart Voluntary Action

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One Community

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Rushmoor Voluntary

Eastleigh Basics Bank (above)

The Community Christmas Tree Festival running at Eastleigh Museum till 6 January is the perfect expression of the partnership between One Community and Hampshire Cultural Trust, bringing together the best of what both organisations have to offer.

What could be lovelier than a Christmas exhibition full of colour and light, with beautiful trees, clever trees, funny trees and trees to touch your heart – and what better way to summon the spirit

Services 

Test Valley Community Services

Award for Community First’s RASAC—p2 Fundraising efforts for New Forest Nightstop—p2 East Hampshire Volunteer Awards— p3 Better Together Conference & Volunteer Awards —p3 Gosport Community Voice Forum—p4 Rushmoor Celebrates Volunteering—p4

Produced by Hampshire Councils for Voluntary Service Contact Julia Allan 023 8090 2457 jallan@1community.org.uk Featured articles represent the views of the contributing CVS

of Christmas than through the work of 23 diverse local organisations that give so much to the community all year round.

The festival provides the perfect platform for local voluntary and community groups to promote what they do and tell their story to museum visitors. This may help them find more volunteers, charitable donors, members or service users. They have certainly risen to the challenge and staff, group members and volunteers have had a lot of fun with their interpretations. Where else would you find a six-foot knitted Christmas tree produced by a WI, a tree made of empty food tins from the Basics Bank, and a brick tree from Bursledon Brickworks?

Visitors (from comments received) have been receptive to the charm of the exhibition, the creativity of its varied designs, its deeper messages and the joy of recognising causes close to their own hearts.

All Hands on Deck to Help Homeless Fundraising galore is taking place to raise funds for New Forest Nightstop, which provides emergency short term accommodation to the homeless and is available to anyone from the age of 16 and older.

In November Nightstop was presented with a generous donation of £500 from New Forest Rotary. Nightstop Elves Jan and Mike Heard prepared a host of Christmas delights and raised £220 at their recent table top sales at Brockenhurst Christmas Fair and St Thomas’ Church Hall.

Nightstop has its very own tree at the Christmas Tree Festival at St Thomas’ Church, Lymington in December, sponsored by Gulliver Estate Agents.

Nightstop is very grateful to its generous donors who help to support the service. Every coffee morning, table top sale and sponsored event makes a significant difference.

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Award for Community First’s RASAC Community First’s RASAC (Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre) in Winchester, is funded by the Ministry of Justice, NHS England, Hampshire County Council, the Office of the Police & Crime Commissioner in Hampshire, and survivor and public donations. RASAC carries out awareness activities of the risks of certain behaviours in partnership with local schools and provides and promotes trauma counselling to survivors of sexual abuse and assault for all age groups across Mid-Hampshire.

Intense and constant social media and emerging news stories around sexual violence and sexual harassment has meant a steady increase in the numbers coming to RASAC for counselling, but waiting time is still being kept to around 12 weeks, a short period of time by comparison with the waiting times experienced with many other similar services.

Steve Witheyman, RASAC Manager, delivers the service with the help of a part-time administrator and a team of 12 qualified volunteer counsellors, who have undergone specialist training in sexual abuse. Many of the counsellors are survivors themselves, so understand how survivors might feel, especially at the beginning of the counselling.

Clients are offered up to 12 short term counselling sessions with a view to longer-term counselling if needed. RASAC is also funded to provide longer term counselling which is typically up to 26 weeks, with a review and extension thereafter when needed. In 2017 RASAC has seen over a 100 clients, both male and female.

The RASAC under-18s service covers Midand North-Hampshire and has two dedicated, specialist counsellors who provide both face to face counselling sessions to children and young people and also run a group for teenagers called "Umbrella" which meets every month in Winchester.

RASAC works alongside local schools and the University of Winchester in raising awareness and is helping staff with training. The team attended the Boomtown Festival in August as part of the welfare provision for festival goers.

Steve says, “The RASAC team was proud to

receive the Team of the Year award at the Test Valley Community Services AGM in recognition of its contribution to the Test Valley community (see over page). I am grateful to our team of volunteer counsellors who have worked so hard, to such good effect, to make this award possible.”

More information about the service can be found at www.rasac.org.uk.

Inspirational East Hants Volunteer Awards More than 120 people attended the East Hampshire Volunteer Awards on Wednesday evening 29 November to publicly recognise the volunteers who dedicate so much of their time to help others.

The awards ceremony, organised by Community First and East Hampshire District Council (EHDC), took place at the Festival Hall in Petersfield and celebrated the dedication and enthusiasm of local volunteers who make such a difference to the lives of so many residents. The evening featured speeches from Sandy Hopkins, Chief Executive of EHDC, Tim Houghton, Chief Executive of Community First, and a video speech from Damian Hinds, MP for East Hampshire. They all spoke about how important volunteers are for the district.

There were also live performances from the Alton College Jazz Band and a selection of songs from the musical Oliver, performed by The Petersfield School.

Six awards were up for grabs on the evening:  Young Person of the Year  Unsung Hero  Small Team of the Year  Large Team of the Year  Lifetime Achievement  Special Commendation.

You can find details of all the award winners and their stories at www.easthants.gov.uk/news/ inspirational-evening-east-hampshire-volunteerawards together with links to some inspirational videos from them.

Winners photo by photographer Tom Langford

Conference and Volunteering Awards Test Valley Community Services (TVCS) hosted a Better Together Conference and their Annual Volunteering Awards in November, promoting the benefits of working in partnership and celebrating the hard work of volunteers across the Borough.

The Invisible Hero Award, sponsored and supported by the Test Valley Mayor, Cllr Carl Borg-Neal, was won by Pat Robinson, Knights Enham for her work in running community children’s groups for over 30 years. Runners up included Sister Avis, Romsey Abbey CE Primary School and Ray and Sue Jones, from Romsey Cancer Support Centre.

The Volunteer Team of the Year Award winners were the RASAC Counselling Team (see page 2), and the runners up were Age UK Sunday Lunchtime Drivers.

The Volunteer of the Year Award was presented by Duncan Tuffrey from Ansvar Insurance who have sponsored the Award for the third time. The winner, Joyce Baughen from Dukes Café, Andover and District Mencap, has volunteered at the café for 10 years supporting adults with learning disabilities. Runners up were John and Baggie Bowman, Enham Trust and Danny Hockley, James Place.

Deborah Harkin, Assistant Chief Executive of Hampshire County Council, was keynote speaker for the Better Together Conference.

Other speakers included Sim Dendy, who helped to set up Romsey Food Bank and Siobhan Down, Yellow Brick Road Projects, all of whom talked about the importance of working together.

This event also saw the unveiling of the new TVCS name and branding, designed by local company Anton Visual and presented

by Ed Fennell. A new name and modern image emphasising community work as central to everything the organisation does.

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Gosport Community Voice Annual Forum On 15 November the annual Community Voice Forum was held at Thorngate Halls. The forum, which is now a permanent fixture in the Gosport calendar, brings together many representatives of the Gosport voluntary, community and statutory sectors to take time to work out how they can do things “better together”.

The event has been planned and run for many years by what was formerly known as the Compact Group but is now known as the Community Voice Group, which works together all year to solve issues between the voluntary and the statutory sector in relation to consultation, volunteering, funding and representation.

The theme of this year’s event was “Community Treasure - The Value of Diversity and Inclusion”.

The aim was to raise awareness about the positive contribution everyone can make in their local community. Some may need a little extra support, so guidance on how to do this was provided, such as how to engage with those thought of as most hard to reach and how to develop easy read documents. An introduction to Makaton was given, and local community groups gave an update on their work. The key note speaker was Emily Dewey, from Toucan Diversity who gave an insightful and inspirational talk on her life with autism. The day concluded with foods from around the world for lunch, and an opportunity for attendees to network. Gosport Voluntary Action expressed thanks to all who contributed, and to their partner, Gosport Borough Council, who funded the event.

For information on how you can get involved in future meetings and events please contact Mandy Bright at Gosport Voluntary Action on 023 9260 4690 or by e-mail on engagemanager@gva.org.uk

Rushmoor Celebrates Volunteering 2017 Volunteers who support local voluntary groups and charities in Rushmoor were given formal recognition and thanks for their contribution to the community at an Awards Ceremony held in Farnborough on 15 November 2017.

The annual event to formally recognise the contribution made to the community by local people was hosted by Rushmoor Voluntary Services (RVS) and Rushmoor Borough Council.

Over 50 volunteers from 30 different organisations were nominated and attended the event, which was hosted by the Deputy Mayor of Rushmoor, Cllr Steve Masterson. The volunteers received a certificate of thanks to mark the occasion. The Leader of the Council, Cllr David Clifford also gave words of support to the volunteers, RVS and local voluntary action.

Cllr Steve Masterson, Deputy Mayor of Rushmoor, paid tribute to all the volunteers who work with so many different organisations to support the community in Rushmoor.

Greg Alexander, Chief Executive of Rushmoor Voluntary Services said: “Volunteering in Rushmoor continues to thrive, and the contribution of local volunteers cannot be overestimated.”

Terry Snuggs, the Volunteer Centre Coordinator who helped organise the event with support from Rushmoor Borough Council said: “Our event has shown the rich mix of volunteers in Rushmoor. We have met many volunteers today who have been involved with their organisation for over 20 years each – this shows the dedication and loyalty of local people who want to make a positive difference to others.”

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