On Friday 19 June, Tony Lockey, Programme Lead at CVS Inverclyde and Craig Molloy, founder at Craig Molloy Coaching C.I.C attended the Communities Conference at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.
This Participation of the Communities Teams (PACT) was arranged as a celebration to recognise the work conducted by community organisations and to help engage with Parliament.
PACT’s approach is to work in partnership with people and organisations (e.g. charities, community organisations, business groups) to design and apply participation methods to support people with lived experience to contribute to Parliamentary work.
PACT’s aim is to increase the understanding of community’s needs through community development work. Conference delegates learned from the third, charitable and voluntary sectors, through taking part in a number of workshops including:
- How to improve Parliamentary awareness
- How to increase community engagement
- Building confidence and capacity
- Improving accessibility to the Scottish Parliament
- Increasing Diversity and involving missing voices
Speaking of the Conference, Tony highlighted “This event and the PACT approach is focused on giving more voice to organisations, communities and individuals at Parliament.
“It was great to hear and learn at first hand that valuable experiences and perspectives from all over Scotland are being gathered and communicated to Parliament that in the past may have been missed’’.
Craig Molloy said “As a new organisation, learning about the variety and depth of events and work being carried out across Scotland through this conference was so invaluable.
“The conference offered me really useful information, the chance to benchmark ideas and gain further knowledge from others that I hope to implement through my football training.
“All the speakers from around Scotland presented a variety of amazing operations they carry out but also really highlighted key issues we are all facing such as impacts on funding, volunteer numbers and having our voice heard.
“I look forward to hearing the results of the conference when they are published.”
CVS Inverclyde is the local Third Sector Interface (TSI). We offer support across funding, governance and volunteering. For more information contact us admin@cvsinverclyde.org.uk or become a member at https://www.cvsinverclyde.org.uk/our-support/membership/
If you are an existing organisation in Inverclyde don’t forget to sign up to Inverclyde Life, the local service directory: https://inverclydelife.com/
Learn more about Craig Molloy Coaching C.I.C at https://craigmolloycoachingcic.co.uk/