Organisation support: local and regional

Local and Regional - Contents

1 National starting points
2 Local Resources
3 Regional
- - 3.0.1 Sector Networks/Forums
4 Technology/media focus
5 Local Mixed Bag
- - 5.0.1 Other local sites worth a look

National starting points

Action with Communities in Rural England Somerfield Court, Somerfield Road, Cirencester, Glos, GL7 1TW, phone 01285 653477.
National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA). The network for local sector support bodies in England. Floor 2 Churchill House, 6-8 Meetinghouse Lane, Sheffield, S1 2DP, phone 0114 278 6636. Website includes directory of local CVS, and there is also a regional list of training contacts.

Local Resources

Websites from local infrastructure bodies which offer information relevant to organisations based or working in their areas and/or a directory of local voluntary and community groups. Dates given in brackets are the most recent times we checked what they were up to. We can’t list every site here, so aim to have a spread across the UK, particularly those with a good range of accessible material or voluntary sector contacts info.

You may also want to try out external search engines to locate local facilities and groups as they are easier to find than when this page was started.

England

Birmingham Birmingham VSC (24/2/18).

Bradford DIVA (3/6/05). Voluntary organisations database for Bradford District.

Brighton Sussex Community Internet Project (15/1/01) Covers the whole county and loads of link lists, but a definite Brighton flavour. Also check: Resource Centre (11/10/01) – equipment and information for Brighton and Hove community groups; Brighton and Hove – Community Works.

Bristol Voscur – has a lot of useful resources on its Support Resources from Voscur (May’14).

Devon Voluntary Action (Jan’15).

Dorset Community Action (4/9/02).

Durham Durham Voice.

East Sussex ESCIS Community Information Service from the local authority.

Essex A system from the county council allows community groups to set up their own web pages at essexinfo.net (23/1/06).

Action Hampshire.

Hertfordshire Community Development Action Hertfordshire (22/11/13).

Leeds Doing Good Leeds (March ’14).

London Community Action Southwark (Oct. ’14) – website has a good resources section.

Norfolk Voluntary Norfolk (22/3/10).

North Tyneside VODA (1/6/05).

Nottingham CVS (12/6/02).

Oxfordshire: Oxfordshire CVA (June 2015).

Sheffield: Sheffield Directory (18/1/11).

Staffordshire Support Staffordshire.

Surrey Community Action (15/9/03).

Wirral Community Action Wirral (22/6/10)

York CVS (11/6/03). Some useful reference material on this site.

Northern Ireland

North West Community Network (22/3/10).

Scotland

Caithness.org (31/8/01).

Dundee Voluntary Action (26/8/03).

East Lothian Strive.

Edinburgh Edinburgh Compact aims to improve communication across the 1800 or so local organisations (27/3/06), Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations’ Council (27/3/06).

Orkney Voluntary Action Orkney (15/1/07) or Orkney Communities (Nov 03).

Skye & Lochalsh Council for Voluntary Organisations (3/11/03). Their community toolkit looks very good.

Wales

Cardiff Third Sector Council (19/3/12).

InfoEngine (being developed 2015) is an online directory of services (provided by community organisations etc.) covering Powys, Ceredigion, Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire.

Pembrokeshire Association of Voluntary Services (PAVS) (19/12/03).

Powys Powys Association of Voluntary Organisations (11/11/11), phone 0845 009 3288.

Swansea SCVS (13/9/04).

County and District

A trend of local council sites creating directories of voluntary organisations operating in their area appears to have reversed. There are probably some still out there – do let us know of live sites, or those in development.

Regional

Sector Networks/Forums

Often set up in response to the Labour government’s ‘regional agenda’, and with less financial support since then. Our Lobbying page has any remaining regional government links.

These initiatives are primarily about improving communications between voluntary and community organisations in their region (who are encouraged to be members), providing information on issues which effect them and encouraging the development and dissemination of good practice. Also often doing regionally based lobbying.

North East England Voluntary Organisations Network North East.

North Yorkshire and York Forum.

East of England East of England BME Network.

East Midlands One East Midlands.

West Midlands Regional Action West Midlands.

Technology/media focus

Cambridge Online.

Manchester People’s Voice Media.

Local Mixed Bag

Many cities and larger towns have their own sites, run commercially, by the local council, individuals or community groups. These will often have something about local voluntary activity, but quality and focus vary hugely. Some will not get past listing the next car boot sale in aid of the Scouts. However, they are worth a try.

Also check local newspaper websites.