Two items of interest for the sector

We've been busy since we last saw many of you at the forum on 9-October.  You'll hear from us again soon when we circulate the summary from that meeting and when we've been able to finalise our follow-up on the action points.

In the meantime, there are two upcoming events that have been brought to our attention-- one by ANGOA (Association of Non-Government Organisations of Aotearoa), and one by CanCERN.  We have decided to pass the details of these events on to the organisations on our registry as these are matters relevant to all OVTRK registrants (by virtue of being NGOs).  We hope that you will find this information useful.  Enjoy your three-day weekend; we look forward to being in touch with you soon.

 

ANGOA - Changes to the Government Contracting Environment

Some potentially wide-reaching and significant changes to the Government's contracting environment are currently being considered. A series of seminars (one in Christchurch) are being organised to share information on the project and gather your initial thoughts on how these changes may work for you. 

The Government's Better Public Services (BPS) work programme is undertaking a project looking at the way government contracts with the community sector. The project aims to develop a common contract template for the community sector between four government agencies - Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Health and Te Puni Kӧkiri. The Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) and Treasury have responsibility for this project.  

ANGOA is facilitating seminars to share with you what this project hopes to achieve, what has happened to date and seek your input on what would be required to make it work across the community sector.

The move to a new contract between community organisations and these key government agencies, that contract with multiple community organisations, could have significant impact.  Come and learn more now and have your say.

Register here for Christchurch - Thursday 25 October, 10am to 12noon, RSA Papanui, 55 Bellvue Ave, Christchurch

  

Seats will be limited so please do register to attend.

CanCERN - Data mapping 

As promised, CanCERN  we will be running a day workshop on how to collect and map data - for real - on Saturday 27th of October from 9 -  3pm.  Venue is tentatively the Wainoni Methodist Church, but may change to a local school because of internet connection needs.  if you register, you will be contacted with confirmation details.  Participants are asked to bring a laptop or book in the use of a laptop if one is unavailable.

At this stage, data being mapped will be physical, to avoid door-knocking.  Things that could be recorded and mapped could include the number of tiled roofs, brick exteriors, wooden exteriors, leaning power poles, pot holes, broken paths, empty sections, special trees... and so on.  This will be decided by the group on the day.  Towards the end of the day, discussion will also take place around colelcting and mapping more complex data (e.g. social data).
 

Please register by CLICKING HERE.  Please spread this far and wide and invite anyone you know who may be interested as we think this will be valuable for sports clubs, scout and guides groups etc. as well as Residents Groups and NGOs.  

Great forum today...

Thanks to our guests today:

Phil Shaw (Christchurch City Council), Michelle Mitchell (CERA), Rob Woods and Chrissie Williams (ECAN), Arihia Bennett (Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu), Paul Davey (Selwyn District Council), and Simon Markham (Waimakariri District Council).

Thanks also to everyone who attended or put in an apology.  We'll be in touch soon!

See you tomorrow.

We are looking forward to seeing you at our forum tomorrow (Tuesday) morning from 8:45am -11am at the Mental Health Education Resource Centre (403a Worcester).  We are pleased to have representatives confirmed from CERA (Michelle Mitchell), Te Runanga o Ngai Tahu (Arihia Bennett), ECAN (Rob Woods and Chrissie Williams), the Christchurch City Council (Philip Shaw), Waimakariri District Council (Simon Markham) and the Selwyn District Council (Paul Davey).

Below is a reminder of what we discussed at our last forum, as well as updates on action items.

Report to OVTRK Registry on follow up to the 31 August Forum(notes on that Forum already circulated to those that were on the OVTRK Register)
For any further feedback re the work of the OVTRK Organising Group please email

ngovoices [at] gmail [dot] com

The Forum on 31 August noted a number of matters that the Organising Group has since followed up:

CERA's focus on problem areasLiaison after the Forum with Matt Walters (and Denise Kidd) has led to an open invitation to contact Matt (matthew [dot] walters [at] cera [dot] govt [dot] nz) for any matters concerning NGOs. A fifth area (four were listed at the Forum) identified at 31 August Forum was assets (rather than the initial suggested topic for the Forum of hubs).

We have clarified that we are concerned about more than the now 5 "problems".

Profiling our sectorWe briefed CERA about the confusion about the use of the term "community sector". We pointed out that all 3 sectors make up the wider community and that we have decided to use the term "NGO sector" as a shorthand for what is described in the OVTRK kaupapa statement. This sector stands alongside the Commercial and Government (whether local, regional or central) sectors. All can work collaboratively in the wider community.

We also noted that our sector needs a turangawaewae (standing place) for the rebuild The Forum planned for 9 October 2012 (details already circulated) is called to achieve recognition of this amongst the statutory organisations identified in the CER Act.

AssetsWe have clarified that the CERA community assets project is looking at physical infrastructure of community facilities - buildings and spaces. This includes assets owned by either community-based entities, central or local government. CERA is wanting to facilitate managers of these assets to think about the current and future needs of the community, rather than to simply replace what was there before. Mapping of these that is being done by CCC will contribute to the CERA project.

We noted that

• it is important to be clear about what we mean by ‘community owned’.  Some buildings for community use are owned by central or local government, others are owned by NGOs
• schools are community assets too, and recent government actions does not demonstrate a commitment to considering the current and future needs of the community
• a number of residential homes have been allowed by government to be lost to the inner city east by being let to some of our sector agencies who have become the new colonisers in a vulnerable and fragile community
• the CCDU has no reference to NGO assets e.g. Community House
• the focus on physical assets only is manifested in the denial of funding for social assets and asked that this view of assets be expanded.

WebsitesWe have informed CERA that we will continue to encourage NGOs to put themselves on the OVTRK Register, put OVTRK on the rebuildchristchurch.co.nz website being developed by Deon Swiggs, draw attention of NGOs to that website and to both www.ngoupdater.org.nz, and www.chch3.net.nz. We will continue to be in dialogue with Deon.

Wellbeing SurveyCERA is just beginning this process in order to be able to identify emerging social trends and thus enable agencies to respond. A 6-monthly survey of a representative sample of 2500 residents of greater Christchurch, aged 18yrs+ will seek responses either by a postal questionnaire or on-line. Results will be online by March 2013. A website where people can choose to participate will be analysed separately as it will not be representative, and so the data could capture bias. It  will inform the other sample. The website and link will be available in a couple of weeks’ time.

CanCERN dataBrian Parker has followed up on the Data Workshop held on 18 September to look at how communities can collect good data to allow them to lead their own recovery.