Posted on May 13th, 2010 by Sarah Miller in Archived project news
Tagged as: local partners
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ShareThisJonathan Moore (JM) is the Chief Executive of the Suffolk Association of Voluntary Organisations and is involved with Pathways through Participation as the Chair of the Suffolk Local Stakeholder Group and a member of the Advisory Group. Sarah (SM) spoke with him about his views on how the project has been taking shape.
SM: What was it about the project that made you interested in being involved?
JM: One thing that drives me in my work in the voluntary sector is people getting up and doing something, changing their lives, trying to find solutions. Anything only changes if people actually take some ownership, participate in one form or another. So I’m very keen on finding ways of identifying what drives participation, what motivates people, and how one can get more of it.
SM: You’ve been involved in the Advisory Group. You’ve been involved in the Local Stakeholder Group. You’ve been quite instrumental in shaping the project. What are your reflections on these last 9-10 months?
JM: One thing that I really like seeing is the cross-organisational involvement of the Institute of Volunteering Research, Involve, and NCVO. I think that’s a good mark and that’s something I find attractive.
What I’ve experienced for the first time which I think is quite interesting is different methodologies of research. So there have been some reflections [within SAVO] on how we look at gathering information as an organisation and that’s been quite a key learning point.
I find the Advisory Group very stimulating. I’m not really a great researcher; I’m a bit more of a hands-on one, but I think it’s quite interesting to blend theory with practice and actually see what the practical applications of this learning are…One thing that I think is quite encouraging about this project is involves local councillors and part of the reflection is feeding back into other arenas. So I’m rather hopeful that some of the information that can be found in Suffolk can actually help shape some of the thinking within Suffolk.
SM: Why is it important to you that Suffolk is represented, or maybe more broadly that the rural experience is represented in this project?
JM: There are some really great similarities between areas that bear no relationship to one another, whether it’s an urban or metropolitan or rural area. But the other thing that comes across is that there are also some very distinct differences and something that comes across [in the research on Suffolk] is sparcity and access to opportunities to participate. Gaining the kind of critical mass that you need to actually be able to run an organisation is harder when you have a very dispersed client base or volunteer base. Therefore things like transport become critical parts of the success factor in a way that they aren’t in other areas. Those are things that need to be in the thinking when we’re developing policy or models of good practice.
SM: How might this project feed into SAVO’s work or to your work in local areas?
JM: In all the partnerships that we work with both within the voluntary sector, within the statutory sector, and in various others, there is a recognition that finding ways of involving and engaging people is a critical part of improving and creating quality services. And yet I think it’s a fairly clumsy way that people are doing it. The kind of approach you’re often seeing is a gathering of usual suspects so that new forms of empowerment are not happening. Or there’s almost extremes where you get those that are perhaps most vociferous or in conflict. So I’d be very interested in feeding up the [project] findings.
If we can understand what makes people participate and what encourages participation then what we can do is feed this into the culture of how not only voluntary but also statutory groups begin to try to communicate and work with the communities they’re there to serve. It’s quite vibrant in Suffolk. We’ve had a lot of discussions in Suffolk about local government review and community boards and there’s a lot of change going on in relation to that so this has a good opportunity to help inform and shape that agenda.
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