New opportunity to make a real difference to rural communities in Berkshire

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Could you be our new Rural Housing Enabler?

£30,000 – £32,000 pa, full-time role, 35 hours per week. Fixed term contract until March 2025.

Funding is in place to offer this role on a full-time basis. However, we want to hear from potential candidates interested in the role but unable to make a full-time commitment. We will consider offering the role on a part-time basis or as a job-share to the right candidate/s. We will also be happy to consider offering a secondment to someone currently working in an associated role who can bring strong skills and experience with them while learning a new aspect to their profession.

Rural Housing Enablers (RHEs) work to increase the supply of affordable homes in rural areas for people with a local connection to their community. They support communities to build up evidence of need for affordable housing and use this evidence to help bring about small-scale developments to address local needs. These developments help ensure the vibrancy of rural communities, providing much-needed homes for people growing up or working in these communities and supporting local businesses.

The opportunity

The Berkshire RHE will work in partnership with rural communities, local authorities, Registered Providers and other stakeholders to increase the supply of rural affordable homes. The RHE will join a network of RHEs working across England, with the opportunity to learn from each other and inform the development of local and national policies and strategies.

We are looking for someone with the passion and drive to lead this important project. Our ideal candidate will have a background in housing, understand the current policy background and have a sound appreciation of community development principles. A full job description and person specification can be found here. Our ideal candidate will possess many of the qualities outlined and be motivated to actively pursue opportunities to develop themselves further. This role involves travel around Berkshire, many of the areas will be rural with very limited public transport. A good proportion of your time will be out and about meeting people, so if you are a confident driver with access to your own car for business use, this would be an advantage.

To apply for this role, please review the Job Description and Person Specification and send a CV with covering letter (and a Diversity & Inclusion form) describing how your skills, experience and interests align with the role, to Gemma.Pearce@ccberks.org.uk or post to Connecting Communities in Berkshire, Wyvols Court, Swallowfield, Berkshire, RG7 1WY .

The deadline for applications is Friday 26th January and interviews will take place during the 8th February.

Our benefits:

  • 25 days annual leave per year plus public/bank holidays
  • Contributory pension scheme
  • Free office car parking
  • Staff training and development

If you would like an informal chat about the role before applying, please contact Tim Parry from CCB on 0773 888 7611 or email Tim.Parry@ccberks.org.uk.

Help Make Health Research and Planning Across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West (BOB) Become More Equitable

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Across Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West (BOB) a project* is underway to develop better ways of working with local communities. The idea of the network is to help make sure that the views of all communities** are included in health and care research and healthcare planning. We want to make sure research and planning becomes more equitable.

We know that great work is already happening but that it may not always be shared with everyone that could use it. We also know that the views of all communities are not included and, that at times, communities can feel overburdened by requests, particularly if they don’t receive any feedback. We want to understand better what is happening already so that we can improve things for everybody.

We hope that you will be able to help us. Please could you complete this survey which asks about what community engagement work you/your organisation is doing. By community engagement we mean finding out about what people think and feel and using this to make a difference. There are lots of ways in which this might happen, for example, by speaking with your members during events or activities, asking them to complete surveys, or compiling case studies based on the experiences of those you work with. You or your organisation may carry out this work yourselves or work with another organisation or a research team.

The survey is short and it should take no more than 15 minutes to fill in. If you have any questions or queries then please contact sian.rees@healthinnovationoxford.org, who will be doing the survey analysis. All responses will be anonymised in our analysis. and people responding to the survey will not be identified in the report we will be writing. Once we have analysed the information, we will be holding a sharing event in February to develop an action plan.

You will find the survey Here

We would be very grateful if you could complete the survey by January 16th 2024.

To learn more about the BOB VCSE Health Alliance, visit their website Here

* This work is being carried out by the BOB VCSE Alliance, BOB Integrated Care Board, Health Innovation Thames Valley and Oxford and local research organisations – the NIHR Applied Research Collaboration Oxford and Thames Valley and the Clinical Research Network Thames Valley and South Midlands

** By communities we mean groups of people who share where they live, or who have a shared condition, or who share particular characteristics of heritage, belief or identity

VCSE Energy Efficiency Scheme

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A new funding scheme will soon be opening to help voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations in England improve their energy efficiency.

The VCSE Energy Efficiency Scheme is part of a package of over £100 million of support being delivered by the Government to help front line delivery organisations with the increased cost of living.

This scheme will have two elements:
• Eligible organisations will be able to apply for the cost and delivery of an independent energy assessment. This will help them identify how to reduce their bills and where to get further support.

• Organisations with an energy assessment may then be eligible to apply for a capital grant to install recommended energy efficiency measures in their premises.

Full eligibility criteria will be published when the scheme opens, but organisations must be based in England, be a VCSE, deliver frontline services and not be suitable for blended finance or loan support through other schemes. Priority will be given to organisations for whom energy is the biggest concern and those directly supporting individuals and communities with critical needs, particularly those related to the rising cost of living.

Applications for free independent energy assessments will open in December. Applications for the installation of energy efficiency measures will open in January 2024.

Practical support will be available to help organisations manage capital installation projects. All measures will need to be installed and paid for by March 2025.

More information will be available on www.vcseenergyefficiencyscheme.org.uk soon but interested groups can register to be alerted when the scheme goes live by visiting:
www.groundwork.org.uk/vcseenergyefficiencyscheme.

Have you heard about our 21st Century Community Halls project?

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We’re one year into our five-year project – do you know what makes a 21st Century Community Hall?

We’ve just completed year one of our five-year 21st Century Community Halls project and boy has it been a busy one! So far 38 of our 80 member halls have been visited for a face-to-face audit with many lined up for visits in early 2024. Over the next four years we will also be reaching out to volunteers who run rural halls not in our network to better understand their needs and engage them in this project.

So what is a ’21st Century Community Hall’ – find out by watching the video above with great examples of how we define one and what makes a good one.

Want to find out more?

We’re running a 21st Century Community Halls Conference on Thursday 25th January 2024. This will provide a fantastic opportunity for you to network with and share issues/solutions with other trustees and individuals who run halls from across Berkshire. In the afternoon we will be looking at how our community buildings can proactively work towards a low-carbon future. Learn how to calculate both financial and carbon savings by making environmental improvements/changes. Book your place below;

NB – Any non-member halls that book and later sign up for Community Buildings Advice Service Membership will have the cost of a ticket taken off their annual membership fee.

Register on Eventbrite

West Berkshire; Is there a ‘champion’ in your community?!

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The Community Champions Awards recognise the amazing and valuable contributions local residents make to West Berkshire. They are an opportunity to say thank you to people who have done something special for their local community and will honour those individuals and community groups who have gone above and beyond to support residents throughout West Berkshire this year.

The award categories for 2023 are as follows:

  • The Pat Eastop MBE Junior Citizen of the Year
  • Volunteer of the Year
  • Community Group of the Year
  • Lifetime Achievement Award

“The Community Champion Awards are really important to us. It’s a great chance to say ‘thank you’ to the people and groups who help and support others in West Berkshire.

These awards celebrate those helping their communities and honour those who do good things in our district. The Community Champion Awards recognise our unsung heroes in all their forms and the quality of nominations is always high. I would urge residents to take a few moments to nominate these wonderful people undertaking great work in our communities, no matter how big or small.

To nominate someone or for further details please click here.

Deadline 11th December 2023