NGO delegate developments and more to discuss at Tuesday's forum!

Important information about the next forum and an NGO delegate...

Hope everyone is enjoying this warm weather.  We have several updates to share.

Details for the open forum next Tuesday (important updates!)
The next Sector Forum for NGOs on our registry is next Tuesday, 11-December from 9am -11am at CWEA (59 Gloucester Street).  In our last email, we explained that we want to discuss OVTRK’s response to CERA’s invitation to identify a delegate from the NGO sector to join the Community Wellbeing Planning Team that is convened by CERA.   We would like to:

• Discuss the outline for this role and a system for identifying a delegate (click the link for a job description and call for applications)
• Share views on what this would include
• Discuss a system for supporting the delegate (click link for support TOR)The next Community Wellbeing Planning Team meeting is on 12-Feburary, so we would like to act in time to have a delegate in place for that meeting.  A more detailed timeline is available (click the link) and will be discussed at the forum on Tuesday.

This is an important opportunity for our sector, and we are looking forward to the input from OVTRK registered NGOs.  There will be time for a short panui at the end if anyone has something they’d like to share.


What else OVTRK has been up to

• We have been following up with the six statutory bodies as requested during the last forum.  Minister Brownlee did not accept our invitation, and our correspondence with him has been referred to the Corporate and Governance section of CERA.  We will keep you up to date as this correspondence continues.
• The OVTRK co-chairs met with Labour MPs who asked to meet with OVTRK for a briefing.
• The Council of Social Services has clarified the difference between OVTRK and COSS in the most recent COSS newsletter (click the link for the newsletter).
• Members of the OVTRK steering group attended the Association of Non-Government Organisations Aoteaora (ANGOA) seminar on the government’s “Better Public Services” work programme.
• Members of the OVTRK steering group attended the Social Service Providers Aotearoa (SSPA) lecture on Improving Productivity in the NGO sector.
• The OVTRK co-chairs attended two workshops on the Natural Environment Recovery Programme led by ECAN.

OVTRK plans for the rest of the year

• OVTRK will send someone to the 6-December Jim Diers' Building Strong Communities Session.
• OVTRK will have someone at the Community Leaders Meeting on 7-December.
• Denise Kidd will be giving us some feedback about the CERA wellbeing survey.

Data mapping
Notes from the CanCERN data mapping workshop are now available on their website(click the link for the relevant page).  For more information around using this resource, you can follow up with Brian Parker at brian [at] cancern [dot] org [dot] nz .


Registry reminder
We’ve updated the criteria for being a registrant of One Voice Te Reo Kotahi in order to bring out our kaupapa a bit more.  This information will be available on our website soon.  If you can think of an organisation that isn’t on our registry yet and should be, please direct them to the registration form or this site.

That's our big update!  Hope to see you next Tuesday.

Next Sector Forum scheduled

We have scheduled our next Sector Forum for NGOs
on 11-December from 9am - 11am
at CWEA (59 Gloucester Street).

We have invited Gerry Brownlee, asking him to address the same questions as the last forum.  His office has advised that our request is with him, but they have had no feedback to date as to whether he is able or willing to attend.  They will let us know in due course.  We've agreed to wait for a decision and organise a meeting when or if he is available-- in the meantime, we've organised a sector forum.

 

This forum – An NGO Voice in CERA’s Community Wellbeing Planning Group - will enable us to discuss with those on the OVTRK register the invitation from CERA to identify a delegate from the NGO sector to join the Community Wellbeing Planning Team that is convened by CERA.  We would like to:

• Discuss the outline for this role
• Share views on what this would include
• Discuss a system for identifying a delegate
• Discuss a system for supporting the delegate

We hope that those on our registry will be able to make it.

As always-- if you know anyone who might like to join OVTRK or would be interested in learning more about what we've been up to, the easiest thing to do would be to direct them to this site.  Thanks!

Notes from last forum are out

Tomorrow, members of our registry will be receiving the notes from the 9-October OVTRK forum.  There's also a bit of news about a new development between CERA and the NGO sector.

As usual, more information to follow.  In the meantime, we've made a wordle based on the areas of interest and expertise that the organisations on our registry reported.  Great to see the word "community" splashed up so prominently!

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!