We hope all is well with you and your community.

This week we have updated the Dales Directory of Useful Links which includes contact details or links to, organisations that offer support or information. You can download it as a PDF from our website – Dales Directory (COVID 19).

We have also updated the COVID 19 Funding and Grants information on our website this week and you can download the PDF here.

On the subject of funding, our Five Ways to Well-being small grants programme is open for applications, with a closing date of 30th September. This scheme may be appropriate for your group if you are working towards improving mental health of your commununity and/or ‘doing or using’ one of the Five Ways to Well-being. More detail about the scheme here.

We will have another round of the Better Derbyshire Dales Fund this year and welcome applications from eligible voluntary groups. The next closing date is 12th November. We regularly support sports clubs, community groups and village halls, in particular with their ongoing repairs as there is a capital strand to BDDF.  We would be pleased to support village halls with any extra costs that they may incur due to COVID 19, such as cleaning materials or extra hours for cleaning staff, up to a maximum of £500 per village hall/community building.

If you would like to find out more about the Better Derbyshire Dales Fund please contact Jonathan or Sarah at DDCVS.

We have increased our office presence at Bakewell and will review this each month; at present we are not open for drop-in enquiries. We continue to work remotely for the most part; please contact us by phone or email. We can also set up a Zoom meeting if needed, or post information out, it just might take a little longer. Tel 01629 812154 / Email enquiries@ddcvs.org.uk

Tell us about your experience of the last few extraordinary months, and what support you need, by completing a survey.

All completed surveys will be entered into a draw to win 1 of 3 x £25 supermarket vouchers!

We want to hear community groups, voluntary organisations, charities and social enterprises of all kinds and all sizes, from all parts of Derby City and Derbyshire. This includes established organisations (whether or not you have been able to provide services during the lockdown), as well as new informal mutual aid / neighbourhood groups; and faith organisations, parish councils and food banks responding to the crisis. We want to find out, capture and share:
• All the good work that you have been doing to make sure that people affected by COVID, especially the most vulnerable, have been supported.
• What you have learned and experienced
• What the impact has been on your organisation
• Crucially, we also want to know what support and resources you will need in future, so that we can make sure that you get this

The survey should take about 20 minutes, and will ask questions about:
• Your organisation (what you do, where you work, who you support and your annual income)
• What you have been doing (if anything) to support people during COVID (including the kinds of support you have provided, the numbers of people you have helped and the number of volunteers who have been involved).
• The impact of COVID on your organisation, including your income, staff (if any), volunteer numbers, levels of demand, needs and geographical differences.
• Your experience of COVID – what the challenges have been, what you have learned – and what support you will need going forward.

This survey is being carried out by the 3D (Third Sector Support for Derbyshire) network of local CVS, Volunteer Centres and other local voluntary sector support organisations working in partnership with public sector colleagues. If you have any questions, please contact Neil at DDCVS or email 3derbyshire@gmail.com

From the National Lottery Community Fund, this session will explore the role of community infrastructure in the response to COVID-19 and how civil society is forming new relationships and partnerships to overcome the challenges presented by the pandemic.

Julia Parnaby, Senior Head of Knowledge and Learning, will be joined by a panel made up of different parts of the community infrastructure ecosystem, from large organisations working across many areas, to grassroots community response groups. The panel will share their learning and experience of the pandemic and look forward over the next 6 –12 months to how they will implement further changes to create new ways of working.

More information about both events can be found at: https://www.tnlcommunityfund.org.uk/insi ...

Our next online Coffee Morning will include two guest speakers. We will have Jo Briggs from Age UK, Strictly No Falling and Di Cliff from Age UK, Memory Lane.

Regular attendees will know that this event is a chance for you to speak with DDCVS staff, meet other Voluntary & Community group members from within the Dales and to raise any issue(s) concerning your group and community.

If you need any advice about using Zoom, or you would like a ‘practice run’ before the meeting please feel free to contact Jonathan Simcock by email jonathan@ddcvs.org.uk

For an invitation and link to the meeting please contact Jonathan, as above.

We will be hosting a Networking Event with a Bakewell focus, though everyone is welcome to join us.

We will have a speaker from local funder, Foundation Derbyshire as well as Lindsay Coombs from Age UK, Strictly No Falling.

Please contact Jonathan Simcock at the CVS for an invitation. Email jonathan@ddcvs.org.uk

Would you like to connect with people when you can’t meet up right now? Or would you like to let more people know who you are and what you are doing?

We’re excited to share the news that we are launching our new Digital Connections project; we know that many people in the Derbyshire Dales are isolated, missing out on social contact, information and activities online. We can help bring you together.

• Are you a community groups who would like a Digital Buddy to help you share information more easily and make activities available to more people?
• Do you have members on low incomes, or with disabilities, who need a device and the skills to use it?
• Do you need additional kit for your or your members, for example support for people with a hearing loss?

Then we can help! Please download the infographic which tells you more about our project and why we feel it is so important. Please get in touch with Jonathan at CVS, email jonathan@ddcvs.org.uk if you would like to be involved, to find out more.

Could your child write a few words, draw a picture or send some creative scribbles to an older or isolated person in our community?

If you live in the Derbyshire Dales and would enjoy being part of this new project, please email sarahc@connex.org.uk or telephone 01335 348600
www.connex.org.uk

Visit https://freecoursesinengland.co.uk/free- ... to view many free online courses avilable including Mental Health First Aid; Digital Skills and Cleaning Knowledge and Skills.

Many courses offer NCFE CACHE lEVEL 1 or 2.

NCFE used to stand of Northern College of Further Education but is now known just as NCFE. CACHE stands for Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education.

Level 2 is GCSE level but isn’ta GCSE, and with many of the courses online being six to eight weeks, I would guess that the level of difficulty is comparable to a GCSE but it isn’t the same as getting a full GCSE qualification.

I can’t find an answer to ‘what is the LEVEL 1 CACHE is equivalent to’! It seems to be offered as a suite of modules in further education settings, where at the end of the year students would be awarded a qualification based on their achievements.

Nonetheless, some interesting subjects to study, from Free Courses in England.