Coordinating Big Society
The Big Society agenda seems to be engulfing workload at One East Midlands at the minute and in discussions with colleagues, locally and across the UK, we’re’ not the only ones!!

Most support organisations (those organisations formerly known as infrastructure) are undertaking some kind of event or activity around the VCs contribution to Big Society and how the pieces of the jigsaw fit together.

In October 2010 we are hoping to host a joint Partnership conference with Local Authorities across the East Midlands, focussing on the Big Society debate. We hope that by then we will have a much clearer understanding of what it means and how we work together with public sector bodies to achieve it. I say this however in the full and honest belief that the VCS is already doing, and in fact already is, the Big Society in action.

We would like to work across the region to find out the sorts of issues being drawn out from local conversations that might then inform a bigger cross sector event in the Autumn. If you have any views on how this might best be done we’d be happy to hear from you. In the meantime we are listing Big Society activities on our Coalition Government policy page at the One EM website www.oneeastmidlands.org.uk

But in the meantime I will continue to piece together the jigsaw pieces that I have. I am left, however, with the feeling that buying the jigsaw from a BIG car boot sale was possibly a mistake….

Rachel Quinn
Chief Executive
One East Midlands