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GoldStar - Promoting good practice in managing volunteers from socially excluded groups


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GoldStar Events Programme – Call for applications to hold Good Practice Events

About the Fund

The GoldStar Programme is a national initiative, funded by the Office of the Third Sector.  It is designed to promote and share good practice in working with volunteers, mentors and befrienders from socially excluded or disadvantaged groups.

In the last two years, GoldStar has worked towards identifying the barriers to recruiting volunteers from socially excluded groups and offered ways of overcoming them. This has been achieved through:

 

  1. A series of live regional and national events

  1. Support for events run by other networks

  1. Ongoing website and toolkit development

  1. Research with the sector to identify critical success factors

  1. Producing case studies and good practice guidance, such as the free “Good Practice Handbook”

For more information see www.goldstar.org.uk

GoldStar has been awarded funding from the Office of the Third Sector to March 2009.  It is intended that GoldStar will use this year to further develop the programme, ensure that the good practice and resources reach more organisations who might have an interest in working with volunteers, and make sure that they are able to carry the learning forward after GoldStar funding has finished in 2009. 

As part of our objectives for the year, we are providing resources for organisations in the sector to hold events.  The aim of these events should be to promote and develop good practice in other organisations in terms of working with volunteers from one or more of the following target groups:  

  1. Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) groups underrepresented in volunteering, in particular people from British Asian and Chinese backgrounds.

  1. Disabled people and/or people with a Limiting Long Term Illness (LLTI)

  1. People with no qualifications

 

What resources are available?

We can offer the following resources to successful organisations:

  1. A small grant of between £100 and £3000 per event

  1. Marketing materials such as stands and brochures for the day

  1. Listing on our website and newsletter

A “good practice event management toolkit” is also available.  It is full of hints, tips and templates to help organisations to manage events, and contains additional guidance on budgets, branding etc.  We recommend that you refer to this when you plan your response. You can download this from the website www.goldstar.org.uk

There is a total of £60,000 available to organisations for this activity.  We would like to support at least 20 events.  Funding is therefore extremely limited.  We will select those applications which are judged to most closely fit the criteria set out below and which offer the best value for money. 

 

Timescales

The cut off date for the first wave of funding is 12.00 on Friday 29th August.  Decisions will be made by 12th  September 2008

The cut off date for the second and final wave of funding will be 12.00 on Friday 26th September.  Decisions will be made by 10th October. 

The cut off points are inflexible, we would recommend you submit your application in plenty of time and retain proof of postage/ or email receipt to avoid disappointment.

All events will be expected to take place between September 2008 and 27th March 2009.

 

The Criteria

Successful organisations will need to:

  1. Identify and recruit the delegates for the day

  1. Organise the venue and book catering

  1. Identify and book appropriate speakers/workshops (although if you need recommendations for contacts who deal with certain specialist areas we may be able to advise). 

  1. Produce publicity and papers and have them approved by the GoldStar communications officer. This will involve emailing the communications officer with the document who will check it to make sure it complies with the GoldStar co-branding guidelines which will be supplied, and that the content is appropriate. We will endeavour to respond to all requests for approval of documents within two working days.

  1. Co-ordinate the day and provide hospitality

  1. Follow the GoldStar co-branding guidelines on any materials you produce with the funding. 

  1. Provide us with feedback on the day to feed into our evaluation of the programme (see appendix for the monitoring information we will require successful organisations to provide). 

 

Successful organisations must be able to demonstrate the following:

 

  1. Specialist expertise in working with volunteers from one or more of the target group(s), with evidence of good practice. 

  1. The ability to reach and guide other organisations – this may be because of being a strategic organisation either nationally or in a region, having a track record of working as part of a network, or an umbrella organisation, federated organisation, etc. 

  1. We are hoping that the events should, as a rule, reach approx 60 delegates/organisations. Events should be open to organisations on a regional basis 

  1. Clear identification of the target delegates and of the need to work with them – expected learning outcomes and agenda should be outlined

  1. Different approaches to the sharing of good practice (e.g. virtual events, inclusion of volunteers, using a series of breakfast meetings, conferences, workshops etc) will be welcomed

  1. Match funding or in kind funding to achieve better value for money for the event will also be welcomed

  1. You must demonstrate that the activity you are proposing is additional to your existing work. 

  1. You need to have demonstrated that you have considered how you might continue with the networking and learning activities after the event has taken place, and when GoldStar is no longer able to support it. 

 

To apply

Please only submit one application per organisation – you can be a partner in other applications.  If you want to hold a series of events or similar events in different regions please say so in your application.

Fill in the enclosed form (typed and in ariel font size ten or higher) and return it to:

GoldStar Team, Tribal, 2nd Floor, 154 Great Charles Street Queensway,

Birmingham, B3 3HN  

Or email it to volopps@grantsadmin.co.uk

First wave: No later than 12.00pm on Friday 29th August 2008

Second wave: No later than 12.00pm on Friday 26th September 2008

The cut off points are inflexible, we would recommend you submit your application in plenty of time and retain proof of postage/email receipt to avoid disappointment.

For queries please email volopps@grantsadmin.co.uk

 

To download an application form please click here