The Green Fish Partnership
If you are
interested in setting up a new voluntary or community
organisation there can be a mind-boggling number of things to
consider. There are decisions to be made, information to be
gathered, and jobs to do. If you tackle this process with a good
plan of action and plenty of help and support then it isn't as
daunting as it might seem at first.
Some of the most important considerations can be split up into
two basic areas, the main points of each of these areas are
covered below. However these are only guidelines for good
practice as there are no laws for voluntary and community
organisations (unless they are also registered charities).
For more information please refer to Factsheet 3: Management
Committees, Factsheet 4: Planning Meetings and Factsheet
2: Constitutions.
1: Things that
you need to ask, find out, or decide
What do you
want to do?
You need to have
a specific idea about exactly what the group you are setting up
is going to do. Will it offer a service to a community or will it
be of benefit solely to its members? What are the aims of this
group? What do you want to achieve?
Where do
you want to do it?
What area are you
going to cover? For example are you going only to cover
Levenshulme or are you going to cover the whole of Manchester? Be
realistic about this - if you only have the resources to
cover a small area don't try and overstretch yourself.
Who do you
want to do it with?
If you are
providing a service then you may want to identify a specific
group of people with whom you are going to work, for example
people affected by a specific issue or living in a defined area.
Also, if you are going to work with several groups, then you need
to think carefully about any possible conflicts of interest.
Are you
overlapping with other groups?
Once you have
made these decisions, you need to do a bit of research and find
out if there is already a group doing the same kind of things you
want to do in the same area. Duplicating what other groups are
doing won’t help you when it comes to trying to get support,
funding or volunteers so it is a good idea to ensure that what
you want to do is new and/or unique in some way before you
start.
Could you
work in partnership with any other groups or organisations?
If there are
groups already doing something similar perhaps you could make
your idea an addition to their already successful organisation,
or perhaps you could work together to develop something new. If
you are in a similar geographical area then you could perhaps
share premises and work together for the benefit of both groups.
2: Things that
you need to do
Start by thinking
about who might be interested in getting involved in the group.
Then you can start advertising your intentions to start up a
group by using posters or leaflets etc in areas where this target
group might go, for example a local community centre,
doctor’s surgery or school.
If you are going
to make sure that you don’t drown under a pile of
information, ideas and bureaucracy then it is a good idea to
spend time as a group identifying goals, thinking about how you
can achieve them and sharing out tasks. This way everybody gets
involved, everyone knows what they're working towards, and no one
person has all the work piled on them. It will also make it
easier to get funding and support if you have a clear and agreed
vision of what you're trying to do and where you want to get to.
If you are going
to set yourselves up as a group then you really need to have a
set of rules that will govern exactly what your group does, how
it does it and how you all work together. This is what a
constitution does. One of your first tasks therefore is to write
a constitution and officially adopt it. VAM has copies of a model
on which you can base your constitution. The important part of a
constitution is that it reflects what you want to do now and how
you want to do it and also allows you room for expansion and
diversification in the future.
There is usually
a group of people from within the membership of your group who
will be responsible for the day to day running of the group. The
constitution might call them the Management Committee or the
Executive Committee. The Committee are elected by the membership.
Some members of the Committee also take on specific roles within
the Committee including Chair, Treasurer, Secretary etc.
The General
Meetings are usually the overall decision-making body for the
group as it is made up of the whole membership. It is at the
first meeting that you will need to vote to officially adopt your
Constitution and to elect the Committee.
Once you have a
group set up you will need not only a means of managing the group
- a constitution - but also a means of managing your finances.
For this reason it is important that you open up a bank account.
The account should be opened in the name of the group and should
have 2 signatories for all cheques. It is often a good idea for
groups to have 3 or 4 signatories on an account of whom any 2 can
sign cheques to cover when committee members are on holiday or
unable to sign cheques for the group.
3: Sources of
help and advice
Very often many
of the problems or difficulties that you may face will have been
faced and overcome by other groups in the past. Working in
partnership, sharing information and networking with other groups
who are doing similar things or who are working in the same area
can be an invaluable source of support and information.
4: Further
Help
Telephone 0161
236 3206 or www.green-fish.org.uk
© The Green
Fish Partnership Ltd 2001