“We believe that our staff, including our interns, deserve a fair day’s pay for their efforts and want to support them to live and work locally in the community that they serve. We’d encourage other local businesses to do the same: the process is straightforward with helpful resources and a responsive team at the Living Wage Foundation should you need assistance.”
Did you know that CCVS is able to support your organisation through the accreditation process, and Cambridge City Council will fund the first year of the accreditation fee?
To find out more about what the Living Wage is, how to become accredited, and what that would mean for your organisation, read our previous blog.
Camcycle staff team with the Living Wage accreditation plaque.
Networking for charities and services to improve the lives of older people in Cambridge
So far 16 different organisations and services benefiting older residents in Cambridge have met online to share what they are doing, make useful contacts and collect valuable information.
The aims of the network are:
to come together to establish an informal network that meets regularly.
find out what others are doing and to examine challenges together and share experiences.
collaborate more effectively and avoid working in isolation
Attendees have expressed interest in pursuing a number of initiatives including mapping services in the City for older people, sharing communications and creating an event in the Autumn aimed at promoting activities and services for older people in the community.
The network is chaired by Cambridge United Community Trust following an initiative from U3AC and COPE with organisational support from CCVS. The next meeting will be in June. To join the network or find out more get in touch with Christine.
Our CCVS logo and branding was designed some years ago. It has served CCVS very well, but was beginning to look dated and in need of an update.
It’s been a lengthy process but we’re really happy with the end results which we’re sharing with you today.
Once we had the backing and agreement from our Trustees, we began to think about what we wanted in a brand refresh. We decided which elements we would like to keep, namely, a recognisable purple colour; the CCVS part of the logo; and some sort of roundel, in keeping with other CVS’s and NAVCA.
We worked with Chris Gooch, of Open Design Agency Limited, to chat about what we had in mind and put together our initial brief. Chris studied our annual review, our values and our website to gain a real flavour of our work, aims and objectives. As we had been considering updating our Vision and Mission too, Chris advised getting those in place first, so that the vision could become our new strapline for the logo.
Mark, our CEO, put together a proposal document for the Vision and Mission which was circulated for comments and suggestions among our team and the trustees. Some great suggestions gave us plenty to think about and we finally settled on something we were all happy with. This was then put to the Trustees for approval which we’re happy to say was given!
Our Vision
We wanted something short, sharp, and meaningful, aspirational words that would look good on our office wall to show what we’re about. We wanted the vision to drill down to the heart of everything we, and our local organisations do, namely, focussing on community.
Our new Vision is:Fair, Strong, Connected Communities
This has been added to our new logo and gives an immediate flavour of our work and values.
Our Mission
We recognised that our Mission needed to be longer. The Mission describes what it is CCVS does, how we achieve our Vision, and becomes our elevator pitch. It gives us the who, why and how of what we do.
Our new Mission is:
We work with individuals and organisations in communities to help them build places that anyone would want to live in, work in, or visit. We:
Promote relationship building and collaboration with individuals and organisations working in communities
Provide practical support to build the knowledge and confidence of those working in organisations in the community
Amplify the voices of those in communities so they can influence policy makers
Our logo and branding
After many emails backwards and forwards, online chats, and revisions, the logo and brand evolved, and Chris was able to share the final files with us. We’re thrilled with the results.
The CCVS initials have kept a similar purple but have been redesigned in a different font and have had shadowing added. The new Vision has become the strapline.
The roundel, which is made up of individual icons representing people, was reduced from 12 icons, to 6, to match the number of our values. Each of the 6 icons has been given one of our new brand colours.
We wanted the logo to give us flexibility, so as well as using the main logo as a whole, we are able to pull out the different elements to use separately. We have the option of using the roundel in one single colour, on its own, or with the CCVS initials. We can also pull out individual icons to use as we wish. We have the logo in files of different size and formats, in black, white and greyscale, and a logo without shadowing should we need it. Now all we need do is to start using it!
You will notice a very gradual transformation. We don’t have the capacity to do a major launch and change everything all at once. We plan to update things as we use them, so our old logo will be around for some time to come. We need time to think about templates for various aspects of our work, and need to find a balance between looking professional, but having time to get on with what we do best – supporting organisations.
If you’re considering a refresh, here are some tips we’ve learned along the way:
Be open minded from the start, your ideas may undergo many evolutions before you get to the final result.
If you’re going to appoint a designer, find someone you can have an honest conversation with, who listens to your ideas, and is open to change, but willing to challenge you if necessary.
Involve your team in some of the brainstorming and seek opinions. Even though someone may have to have the final say, hearing other people’s ideas can open a whole new way of thinking.
Trust your instincts! Put your ideas out there, be bold if you wish to.
Work with your Trustees, after all, they will need to agree with your proposals, especially if there is a budget involved.
If any organisations wish to chat to us about the process in more detail. Do get in touch. We’d also love to know that you think of the new branding.
Our next big project will be updating our website, but that will take some time.
The last couple of years has resulted in many of us rethinking how we do things. In early 2022 CCVS decided to host some free online volunteer fairs, aimed at the public, to support local voluntary groups with the challenging task of recruiting the volunteers they need. Our aim was to capitalise on people’s New Year resolutions and the loosening of Covid restrictions and help raise the profile of volunteering for local groups. Although the fairs were tied in with the City Council Volunteer for Cambridge initiative, many of the groups involved are looking to recruit volunteers throughout the county.
We know from research1 that to attract more people into volunteering groups need to be visible, accessible and flexible. People showed during the pandemic that they were interested in helping others, but now with their lives starting to return to something like normal, many feel they lack time to commit and don’t know where to find roles that are a good fit for them. Our volunteer fairs looked to highlight a few of the many volunteer opportunities available, with varying levels of flexibility and time requirements. It also gave people the chance to put a face to a group and invited them to ask questions and fill in a simple form or contact the group direct to hear more.
We worked with 10 voluntary groups supporting them to produce 5-minute recordings outlining their volunteer opportunities. We hosted the fairs as two lunchtime sessions to which any member of the public with internet access could sign up and where the groups showed their presentations and answered questions live.
As a result of a lot of promotional effort nearly 100 tickets were booked for the two fairs. Everyone who signed up to the fairs has received links to all the presentations and the contact form and have been encouraged to share the information with friends and family – we hope this will extend the impact of the fairs beyond the events themselves.
The Initial feedback from the public suggests they enjoyed being able to easily hear about different opportunities and ask questions without leaving their desks or their homes. Some of the voluntary groups taking part have reported increased traffic to their volunteer pages on their websites and some have already seen an increase in people getting in touch to find out more about volunteering. We’ll be checking in with the groups to see if this increase in interest converts to more volunteers supporting their work in the community. If the feedback is positive, we’ll consider running more online fairs in the future.
To watch presentations from groups who attended our Volunteer Fair in early 2022 visit this link
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Flóra Raffai as the new CCVS Chair of Trustees.
Mark Freeman, our CEO welcomes Flóra and gives thanks to our outgoing Chair, Mary Sanders:
“I am really pleased that Flóra has been elected as the new Chair of CCVS and I am looking forward to working with her as CCVS moves into the future. I know that all the staff will join with me to welcome her into the new role. Flóra brings knowledge of the sector and a keen insight into the work we do, and I know that she will help us on to bigger and better things.
I am grateful to Mary for all the support she has given me, and the organisation over the years. Having such a knowledgeable and respected chair has been a real benefit to CCVS, and I am incredibly glad that she will remain as a trustee. Mary has overseen some big changes at CCVS and has helped to steer the organisation to where it is now. What is more she has helped me in the transition to the CEO role and I am hugely thankful for all she has done to support me.”
Flóra has been a CCVS Trustee since November 2018. Flóra tells us:
“I am honoured to be appointed as the new Chair of the Trustee Board at CCVS. Having previously benefited from the outstanding support CCVS provides to local charities, I am delighted to have an opportunity to give back. I am very much looking forward to working with my fellow trustees, the CCVS staff team, and the entire CCVS membership to champion local voluntary and community groups, the need for which has never been greater.”
Read more about why Flóra became a CCVS Trustee and what she enjoys about the role in this blog written for Trustees’ Week 2021.
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