25 YEARS ON....

It was a privilege this month to be guest speaker at the 25th anniversary of the creation of Redbridge Council for Voluntary Service at Redbridge Town Hall in Ilford, east London. Here is the text of my address:

I am grateful to RCVS for the opportunity to share a few recollections of the earliest days of the charity. 

It was a Wednesday in the late summer of 1989 when I saw an advertisement for the role of general secretary of the (then) Redbridge Voluntary Services Association, based at Fellowship House on the corner of Green Lane and Stanley Road in Ilford. I applied and was pleased to be shortlisted, being invited to a group interview with the trustees in the neighbouring Fellowship Hall.

Some of you will remember those buildings and indeed some of the most significant voluntary bodies in the borough began their lives in Fellowship House. Today those buildings have been replaced with sheltered housing but those with longer memories will recall that they were single-storey timber structures with corrugated iron roofs and panels made from asbestos board through which strands of ivy grew into the offices within. These were the headquarters of the Redbridge Voluntary Services Association.

It is now 25 years since RCVS gained charitable status - an important milestone. Yet we should acknowledge that there were four or so predecessor organisations to RCVS and a history of shared social endeavour going back to the early 1930s. In the sense of continuity, therefore, we might call this our 84th anniversary! 

I was fortunate to be offered the position but alongside the offer came a warning: the trustees strongly suspected that Redbridge Council planned shortly to withdraw 100% of its grant-aid for political reasons. Yet the trustees were reassured by owning the freehold of the Fellowship House site and felt that we had 12 months in which to broaden the base of our funding and re-launch as a much more independent advocate for the 600-700 voluntary bodies in the borough.

So I took post as the last general secretary of the RVSA in January 1990.  Sadly, one of my first tasks was to issue redundancy notices to my then colleagues who had so worked hard on behalf of the good causes in Redbridge over many years. I’d like to mention them by name: Jean Jones, Rita Park, Dorothy Howes and Eddie Coles.

As expected, the grant to the RVSA was withdrawn in January 1990 but the council then faced what, for sleepy Redbridge, was a sustained outcry across the local press at their decision. As a result, with the council’s agreement a small committee was formed, chaired by Jeff Shear (then Campaign Director of Jewish Care), with a view to creating a new Council for Voluntary Service in Redbridge. An interim grant was made to enable the committee to retain me and for 1990 my time was spent both bringing the affairs of the RVSA to a close and laying the foundations for the new RCVS.

Originally we worked out of an office in Cranbrook Road kindly donated by a friendly architectural firm before moving into Broadway Chambers in the spring / summer of 1991. I was quickly joined in a working partnership by an amazing team.  Michael Spinks facilitated the development of some truly significant community ventures.  Pat Richards supported us with audio typing and lots of filing. Soon after we were joined by the late Jane Clark, who took good care of our finances and advised local groups on bookkeeping, and by Liz Sewell our first community care planning officer.

We all felt we were privileged to be involved at the outset of this venture, with a serious commitment to delivering value for money in advice and guidance and new resources, as well as a strong voice within the council and other public bodies. It is hard to convey just how much fun we had doing that. The keynote of those first years of RCVS was joy. We worked long hours but we laughed such a lot together.

During the five years that followed, several colleagues came to work with us and to help move Redbridge forward as a place of care, community action and neighbourly concern. Qaisra Khan succeeded Liz. Kiri Narendran came to set up the Redbridge Refugee Forum (in those days Redbridge had the 6th highest concentration of asylum seekers in the country). Olive Young managed the Living Options in Practice project. Jennifer Simpson was the first Carers Worker, setting up the Redbridge Carers Support Service; succeeded by Lesley Harrison and her colleague Bridget. Not to forget Helen and Charlotte, our cleaners!

Well Fellowship House and Hall were sold but only managed to clear the RVSA’s residual debts and leave (if I recall correctly) around £1,800 to support the new CVS.  But drawing on the assets in 1990 gave us the springboard for our new beginning.

In 1991/92, the voluntary sector was invited to join with the London Borough of Redbridge, the (then) Redbridge Health Authority and the Family Health Services Authority in a ground-breaking Community Care Partnership. Redbridge was not then an authority naturally in love with co-operation and partnership: it was desperation to make its thin resources stretch as far as possible that led the Council to develop what became actually a sincerely collaborative effort to mend the health and social care divide.  The new CVS led the sector into the Community Care Partnership - a body which by its founding document required 4-way agreement to spend an annual revenue budget of £100m.  For the CVS, this was something of a change from having no income at all the previous year! RCVS also took on the hands-on management of the then Joint Finance fund of £1m, with our dear friend and retirement volunteer Brian Reed bringing the same eye to the management of this fund that he had brought as budget-holder for the construction of the Thames Barrier.

Rather more reluctantly, RCVS created the Redbridge Grants Managing Agency as a means to meet the then Council’s desire to avoid the unpleasantness of saying ‘No’ to numerous applicants for its very limited grant-aid budget. They outsourced this distasteful task to the RGMA while manipulating like mad behind the scenes. I am sure things are done very differently now...

RCVS led the voluntary sector into the then Redbridge Strategic Partnership, the Community Safety Partnership, the Redbridge Advocacy Project, Redbridge Respite Care Association and (I guess) 10+ other significant developments in those first 5 years. A major development was the arrival of lottery funding and over the years we were involved in many bids. I recall working with the League of British Muslims on the first ever round of Lottery funding (successfully, let me add!).

I could reminisce a lot longer – that’s always a danger when inviting an old boy back to an anniversary.  Wisely, Ross Diamond has asked me to keep it to just 10 minutes. So I would like to finish with a quotation from Margaret Mead that, for me, sums up what we were aiming for when this new CVS was created 25 years ago:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

As a Christian minister, I might want to take issue with the final point.  But the broader sentiment I support wholeheartedly.  We wanted to be there for the thoughtful, committed citizens of Redbridge who wanted to make their community a better place for all. Neighbours who, sharing a desire to help and to serve, would then gather around kitchen tables to dream dreams, hatch plans and work to bring about change. 

25 years later, I am delighted that the same spirit of community service prevails.

 

Carry on the good work!

3 November 2016