Agenda and draft minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Scobie and from Kerry Millett (Broadstairs Town Team/ Broadstairs Shed), Jan Dunn (Thanet Community Cinema) and Sally Posnett (Holy Trinity Church, Margate).

To receive any declarations of interest. Members are advised to consider the advice contained within the Declaration of Interest advice attached to this Agenda. If a Member declares an interest, they should complete the Declaration of Interest Form

There were no declarations made at the meeting.

The Chair introduced the subject for discussion and explained the purposes of the meeting to the attendees representing various local voluntary & community organisations working in Thanet. The working party is trying to find out about the experiences organisations have had working with TDC and gain their recommendations for improvement. The rationale for the working party is helping voluntary organisations to bring more external grant funding into Thanet, but any ideas that will help voluntary organisations work more effectively will contribute to this.

The Chair asked attendees to go into three groups to discuss the question, “What can TDC do to be more helpful to voluntary organisations?”

The discussion also included a look at ancillary questions that included the following:

• Have you worked with TDC / used TDC support or resources to try to access funding? How did it go? What were the positives/ what could we have done better?
• If you haven't worked with TDC, is there a reason why not? Would you be happy to work with us in future?
• Have you worked with other Councils on funding - and if so did they do things differently? What worked well?
• How can we improve our support to voluntary organisations to help bring in funding?
• How can we best support your own organisation and those you work with?
• How do you see the District Council's role in supporting the voluntary sector (to access funding, or more generally)? What do you think we ideally should be doing as a District Council to help bring more grant funding into Thanet?

Group B Discussion

Group B participants made the following comments during a discussion:

• TDC should develop a list of trusted local community voluntary organisations that they can engage with regularly;
• The Council could then hold regular voluntary sector forum meetings, maybe quarterly/ twice a year;
• Have a memorandum of understanding between TDC and the voluntary organisations on the preferred list of trusted stakeholders;
• Some voluntary organisations need support with writing bids for the submitting to national funding organisations like the National Lottery Heritage Fund - but some have these skills that they could share with other organisations;
• Some organisations have not had a positive experience of working with TDC. There was a feeling that TDC viewed some voluntary organisations as a nuisance and there was an uncomfortable power dynamic to some TDC/ voluntary sector relationships;
• TDC needs to take a more holistic approach to decision making that would include monetising the social value of some of its decisions, particularly decisions that affect community & voluntary organisations;
• Participants requested that TDC appeals to KCC on behalf of the local voluntary organisations (particularly small organisations) on how they can access KCC grants without using the crowd funding facility. (They argued that the administrators for the crowd funding facility take a significant fee, leaving organisations with little of the intended fund. Organisations that manage crowd funding were benefiting more than communities, especially in deprived areas);
• Could TDC set up a one-stop shop for community organisations to  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.