March’s Good to Know session was an online Huntingdonshire Community Catch-up, it included representation from Huntingdonshire District Council, Cambridgeshire County Council, People For Places and our member organisations.

The Golden Nuggets from our Hunts Catch-Up Session for those who couldn’t make it

NEW – Community Engagement WhatsApp Group for Huntingdonshire

We would like to trial this in Huntingdonshire- please sign up for the group here WhatsApp Group Invite and share amongst colleagues and community members with an interest in community engagement/development/delivering services

This mimics an effective but informal Whatsapp group in Cambridge City, linking groups, organisations, and people, primarily focussed on community engagement. People use this to promote community events and opportunities, such as funding, and gifts-in-kind.

This is not intended to be a community free-for-all, it is simply an exchange of useful information or promotion of events, not an influencing voice piece.

Plunkett Foundation Community Business Support

https://plunkett.co.uk/cambridgeshire-and-peterborough-combined-authority-area-partner-with-plunkett-to-help-communities-save-community-assets-in-their-area/

Through the program groups in the area exploring community-owned businesses can access:

• Packages of free business support with expert advisers looking at a range of topics from governance, and business planning to raising funds
• Small grants of up to £5,000 to cover costs of starting a new community business, including the cost of forming a Community Benefit Society, property valuations and surveys, legal fees and architect fees
• Large grants of up to £45,000 to groups who can demonstrate strong, feasible plans and the ability to get money from other funding agencies and community partners. This capital grant will pay for costs such as purchase and refurbishment

For communities wanting more information about the support and grants available in the market towns and rural hinterlands of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, please visit www.plunkett.co.uk, call us on 01993 630 022, or email info@plunkett.co.uk

Evouchers : A free platform designed to distribute essential retail and energy vouchers. Cambridgeshire County currently use us for their free school meal vouchers as well as their holiday activities scheme

Should we do this again?

I always wonder about the value of a networking session, I would rather sit in my car and eat sandwiches than network! All that small talk and awkwardness, as you try to eat the free food and explain who you are simultaneously.

Despite that, I love networking online! It’s so much easier, it’s more ordered, you can ask questions, you only have to say who you are once and you can follow it up with some written blurb (and secretly eat your sandwiches whilst someone else is talking).

We had a good turnout for this first session but one of our member organisations said to me afterwards ‘I felt out of my depth, I thought this was networking between member organisations. This was my response:

‘These people can’t do their jobs without people like you, your organisation serves people they can’t reach within the community, never feel out of your depth’

Every one of our member organisations, whatever their size, should recognise the value they have – in the rich layers of what we call community -the connections and support they give and their role in the bigger system. If you have any thoughts or feedback, please contact Kathy@huntsforum.org.uk