Hello from everyone at Birmingham Community Matters
We hope you're doing as well as possible through these strange and challenging days.
As always, our peer-to-peer network is here to help you at every stage of setting up and running your Birmingham community group or project. Quite simply, we get people together*, to share their experience and knowledge.
*Virtually, at the moment, while we keep one another safe.
This week (Monday 2 to Friday 6 November) is Trustees' Week, showcasing the good work that trustees do for UK charities, and highlighting opportunities for people to get involved.
Our blog post for Trustees' Week thanks our brilliant board of trustees and invites potential new trustees to join them in governing our growing charity. Find out more.
The post also contains links to events and resources for people wanting to learn more about the role of trustee, or for existing trustees who'd like to strengthen their skills.
New partnerships
One of our big goals for 2021 is to strengthen the existing partnerships we've formed, as well as form new ones for mutual benefit.
GoodGym is a community of volunteer runners who carry out practical tasks which benefit where they live. The runners can help with sorting donations, cleaning areas and packing boxes, doing gardening and outdoor tasks, and moving furniture or other heavy items.
Alex Winstanley is fundraising to have a new book - My Grandma Has Dementia - published and released in early 2021. Inspired by his grandma, who has mixed dementia and lives in a care home, Alex would like to use the book to educate children and young people about dementia and the impact it can have on individuals and their families.
A £20 pledge gets you a copy of the book when it's published - plus one donated to a worthy cause. At the time of writing Alex was 87 per cent of the way to reaching his £1500 target.
BID Services, supporting people with hearing loss
BID Services is a charity based at the Deaf Cultural Centre on Ladywood Road. It provides free information, advice and guidance for people in Birmingham with a hearing loss.
BID can help with benefits, blue badge applications, adult social care referrals and much more. The charity can also provide training sessions to citizens, their families, carers or professionals in a wide range of subjects from wellbeing and confidence, using Zoom, to hard of hearing awareness and accessibility.
If this could help your group or someone you know, have a look at BID Services' website.
DigiKick: internet sessions for beginners
We're always singing the praises of DigiKick - an excellent Birmingham-based charity which helps people to feel more confident about using the internet.
DigiKick has relaunched its virtual Tea and T'internet sessions, helping people learn skills they can use every day.
The team explains all the computer language, ensuring no-one feels left behind.
If you - or someone you know - could benefit from DigiKick's friendly, free service, call Chris on 07920 490263 for information or to sign up.
Do you know a project in Birmingham which has strengthened the community in its response to Covid-19? Has it brought different parts of the community together, including migrants and refugees, to meet local needs?
Run by MigrationWork Trust, the Community Integration Awards celebrate projects that promote integration and social inclusion for community benefit. The 2021 awards will recognise the inspirational ways in which migrant, refugee and more 'settled' communities are coming together to support one another during the pandemic.
Food for Life Get Togethers are regular community activities that connect people from all ages and backgrounds through growing, cooking and eating good food. They are part of a bigger movement, led by the Soil Association, to make good food the easy choice for everyone.
The organisation is currently offering small grants of £150 to support community-led food growing, cooking and sharing activity and Get Togethers, which can be online. The deadline for the next round of applications is Friday 13 November.
Coronavirus resources for community groups
As we all feel the continued impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, we're still updating our page of resources for community groups, which includes details of funding, information on continuity/recovery, and local and national support services.
Please do shout if you know of something we should add.
Interesting events in November and December
Here are a selection of online events from Birmingham and beyond to keep you inspired and entertained through the weeks ahead.
If you have a December or January event you'd like us to consider sharing in our next e-newsletter (coming out in early December), please email info@birminghamcommunitymatters.org.uk by the last week in November.
We read your replies
Thank you for subscribing to our e-newsletter. We'll be back in December with new useful things we've gathered for you.
In the meantime keep us posted on your community group updates and success stories. You can reply to this message - always know there are real people behind it, who enjoy hearing from you.
Our privacy policy exists to reassure our subscribers about how we treat their data. You can read it in full here. If ever you don't want us to have your details, please email us: info@birminghamcommunitymatters.org.uk
As always, our 
On Monday 16 November we're holding three bite-sized online sessions (20 minutes apiece) to help people in starting their community organisations.
If you - or someone you know - could benefit from DigiKick's friendly, free service, call Chris on 07920 490263 for information or to sign up.
