Sally Medd: Chelmsford CVS

By our current standards, we had a good turnout for today’s meeting, including two guests. Six members were delayed by a grass fire next to the A12 but managed to arrive just in time. Our speaker, Sallly Medd of Chelmsford CVS, declined our invitation to lunch and turned up at the end of it to give her presentation.

Chelmsford CVS was established to support local charities and voluntary and community groups. It has a membership of 322 such organisations, including us. These vary from the local branches of national charities to groups of just a few people. Its work is based on four pillars of infrastructure:

1. Partnerships and collaborations: Creating opportunities and driving effective joint working by building networks of local organisations and strategic partners;
2. Leadership and advocacy: Mobilising and encouraging community action, strengthening the sector’s voice and influence on key decision makers and funders;
3. Capacity building: Providing practical support, expertise and development for local people and organisations, to nurture skills and build community resilience; and
4. Volunteering: Building an environment in which volunteers and their communities thrive, by encouraging and nurturing volunteering opportunities.

It is part of Volunteer Essex, which brings together 1,700 organisations and 8,515 different roles. Essex is 31st of the 83 counties in the UK for volunteering. Assuming all volunteers were paid the minimum hourly rate, the work done by UK volunteers would be worth £18,700,000 per annum, over four times the amount donated to charity each year.

Volunteers come from all walks of life. Although asylum seekers are not allowed to seek paid work, they can volunteer, enabling them to gain experience and build up their CVs.

Evidence suggests there are many personal benefits, including physical well-being. Chelmsford CVS can put volunteers in touch with charities and other local bodies seeking to fill a wide variety of volunteer roles, including board members, event stewards and minibus drivers.