In case you missed it, here is a update of what the Empowering Communities Partners have been doing in December…

Social Enterprise Fayre – Winter Networking Event

FUSE Norwich celebrated Small Business Saturday at The Millenium Library in Norwich’s The Forum on 2nd December. Visitors could explore products and services from local social enterprises and had a great time exploring, tasting and buying their interesting products. You could find anything from freshly brewed coffee, arts & crafts, seeds, Lego models, history tours to accessories and small furniture!

We also really enjoyed the conversations as part of our winter networking event and are taking way lots of food for thought for our next activities.

We will announce details of the spring events soon. Follow FUSE on social media or check the website for more information.

NCAN December Partnership Meeting

Thank you to those able to attend our recent partnership meeting. We’re extremely grateful to our fantastic speakers:

• Mike and James from Shelter
• Sam Tims from the New Economics Foundation
• Daniel Williams, VCSE Lead for the ICB.

You can view the meeting back in full here.

We will hold our next Partnership Meeting on Wednesday 7th February 10:00-11:30. Please email info@ncan.co.uk for the Teams invite.

VCSE Leadership Network Relaunch

You can now watch the first half of November’s Norfolk VCSE Leadership Network Session on the theme of ‘Inclusive Leadership: Sharing Perspectives and Experiences’ here – https://youtu.be/Nq5Zc4J3_mw.  In this session we welcomed two guest speakers:

• Aliona Derrett (Hear for Norfolk) on taking a proactive approach to inclusivity (and how and why to embed it).
• Jacqui Mackay (Frozen Light Theatre) on the challenges of bringing multi-sensory theatre to under-served communities.

This was followed by some truly interactive ‘conversation spaces’ where attendees engaged in themed discussions around neurodiversity, building an inclusive community group, keeping your audience/beneficiaries at the centre of all you do, and authentic inclusivity avoiding a “tick-box” approach.  Some very deep discussions were had, identifying common barriers and sharing inclusive practices.

Our attendees shared some feedback with us:

“Thank you for providing the opportunity to come together with other leaders and share ideas, celebrating the impact of the VCSE sector.” 

“It was a really interesting and useful event, thank you!”

“The discussions about inclusion when we talked about looking at things in a different way reminded me of several important factors when managing situations, which was very helpful to a current situation.” 

“Some of the tips on inclusive employment practices were valuable and insightful and will be taken forward in future hiring practices to ensure that we are recruiting a diverse work force.”

Having listened to the feedback of those who attended and those who were interested but unable to attend, we have adjusted the timing of the next session on Wednesday 14th February to 3-5pm. We will hold this session at The Forum (Norwich) and online. For further details and to join the VCSE Leadership Network mailing list, please contact enquiries@ecnorfolk.org.uk.