The Community and Voluntary Sectors must engage in new media or risk being left behind

Earlier this week I blogged about City Camp Brighton, an amazing event that took place over last weekend. But there has been something that has been troubling me with a couple of people noted on Twitter: where was everyone from community and voluntary organisations? I may have missed someone (if so apologies) but I think that there were just a small handful of us from the community and voluntary sector: Mark Walker from SCIP, Cat Fletcher from GreenCycle Sussex, Sally Polanski and Emily O’Brien from the Community and Voluntary Sector Forum, and Paul Sweeting and me from BHT.

Whatever you think of new media and technologies, failure to engage will result in individuals and organisations being left behind. And if we are being left behind, there will a knock-on impact on our clients.

The City Council, the Police, the NHS and the private sector are there, and new media and technology is beginning to dominate agendas. The pace of change is rapid and it will be an extra challenge to play ‘catch up’.

So why are voluntary and community organisations so noticeable by their absence? The first, and most obvious, answer is how busy everyone is. Events such as City Camp Brighton can be seen as yet another forum, meeting or conference, and don’t we do so many of those already? Perhaps, but maybe we should be looking at dropping other things to make capacity.

A second possibility is that many organisations are so taken up at the moment with reacting to budget crises that something such as City Camp Brighton is seen as a distraction, possibly an indulgence.

Thirdly, there is an attitudinal problem. We in the community and voluntary sector boast of being innovative, at the cutting edge, being in the front line. But when it comes to new ways of engaging or using technology to innovate and evolve solutions, it is the City Council, the police and private businesses that are in the forefront. Often community and voluntary organisations are not just following up in the rear, we aren’t even on the same journey.

At BHT, several of my colleagues have dismissed my enthusiasm for new media and technology, saying that they know it is something I am into but it’s not for them. I’ve let it go …… until now. I’m still learning the tricks of this trade and recognise how far I have to go to become an effective communicator through blogging and Twitter. There appears to be an expectation, backed up by strong leadership within the City Council, that community engagement through new media is required. BHT can learn a lot from our Council colleagues.

Transitions at BHT’s 7th Annual Client Involvement Event

Last Friday saw BHT’s 7th Annual Client Involvement Event at the Brighthelm Centre, and it was bigger and better than ever.  This event is now a major date, not only on the BHT calendar, but for several of our partners. The theme this year was ‘Transitions’.

The Event is organised by the BHT Consultancy, a team made up of 24 clients from throughout BHT, and supported (he wouldn’t allow me to say “led”) by BHT’s Client Involvement Co-ordinator, Anthony Irtelli.  While the Event has a very high profile, it is just one of many involvement activities that put clients at the heart of everything we do at BHT.  Involvement in BHT includes clients sitting on interview panels, helping to design new services alongside members of staff, review what we do and how we do it, and increasingly helping to deliver our services.

As for the Event itself, at least 200 clients attended, and there were information and other stalls from most of BHT’s services, as well as stalls from our partners including Rise (formerly the Women’s Refuge Project), the City Council (the anti-social behaviour team, Refugee Forum, Community Skills and Learning, and Community Health Trainers), Whitehawk Inn, Service User Network, Friends Centre, the Credit Union, MACS (Money Advice and Community Support), and the Brighton & Hove Community & Voluntary Sector Forum.  Apologies if I have left anyone out.

I was due to make some welcoming comments but everyone seemed to be having such a good time I thought I would give it a miss this year but by popular demand (actually a couple of clients said they wanted to hear what I had to say) I was did make a short speech welcoming everyone.  More importantly, I was able to affirm the central role of clients in BHT’s work.  Any organisation that thinks it can ignore or just pay lip-service to client involvement are short-sighted and failing to make the most of one of the most precious resources available to any organisation.

So thanks to the Consultancy, to ANthony, and to everyone who came on Friday afternoon.