Rhonda has been involved with the voluntary and community sector (VCS) most of her life. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience about the VCS and, in 2007, she took on the running of Whitwick Community Coffee Shop. With Rhonda's passion and commitment, the Cafe has developed into a major training initiative covering North West Leciestershire. Rhonda joined Voluntary Action LeicesterShire's (VAL) 2013 Future Focus Conference to give a workshop on how collaboration can help voluntary and community groups sustain themselves in a difficult economic climate. The workshop looked at ways to streamline services by joining together and developing a shared purpose and vision. Specifically, Rhonda's workshop helped organsiations find out what a consortium looks like, why a group might consider creating a consortium, how to overcome challenges, and the pluses and minuses of consortium. While the 2013 Future Focus conference is now over, VAL runs trainings and workshops like Rhonda's year-round. If you'd like to learn more about training for your organisation, visit www.Valoneline.org.uk.

1. Consortium
Building
Rhonda Dean
Whitwick Community Enterprises

2. *Community
Connections North
West Leicestershire
*A Third Sector
Training Consortium

3. Reasons
1. To enable the partners
to bid for Contracts
2. To create Pathways to
ensure progression

5. WCE/CEEP/Worth
it Projects
Contract holders
Provision and
quality control
Whitwick
Community
Coffee Shop
Marlene
Reid
Centre
Hermitage
FM
Friends of
Holly Hayes
Woods
Sir John
Moore
Foundation
Shuttlewood
Clarke
foundation
Various
selected
commercial
employers
Support
/referrals/
progression
assistance

6. *

7. *

8. *
ESF Contract
North West Leicestershire Lead
Pathways mapped
Decision Pending

9. *

10. *
Quality Control
Paying Out
Meetings
Delegation

11. *
What are the benefits?

13. Partnership
*Collaboration between organisations or stakeholders that have
their own independent identities
*A real sense of shared purpose with clearly identified and
jointly agreed objectives (a ‘partnership’ must be seeking to
achieve specific outcomes or outputs that all agencies have
agreed upon).
*Genuinely shared decision-making and joint ownership where
each partner has an equal say over terms of
reference, criteria, policy and distribution of resources (it does
not exist where one organisation dominates the decision
making process and others are merely there to be consulted).
*A formalised structure that is agreed by all partners at the
outset (this may include, for example, an agreed statement of
how the partnership operates, a partnership protocol, an
agreed programme of meetings, a separate legal entity).

14. *
*A consortium is typically an alliance of
organizations, usually with a common mission
and purpose, that seeks to gain a benefit that
could not be achieved independently.
*Gale Encyclopedia of Public Health

15. *
*Clear Vision and Mission
*A Plan of Action.
*Leadership.
*Documentation.
*Communications.
*Resources.
Reasons for Success

17. *

18. *
*What are the solutions

19. *
What can each member
bring to the party?

20. *
*Advantages
*Disadvantages

21. *

22. *
rhonda@whitwickcommunityenterprises.co.uk