We’ve published our business plan for 2017-20.

Having celebrated our 40th year as an organisation last year, we are continuing to focus on what we do best – providing practical, relevant support to small community groups in Brighton & Hove. Our business plan describes how we plan to build on our achievements and adapt to changing circumstances, without losing track of the key ideas which underpin our work:

• Small groups are the vital glue that holds communities together. These groups have particular needs and the Centre is a specialist in meeting these needs.
• While we specialise in supporting small groups, the help we are able to offer our user groups is broad. Our services work together to support different aspects of a group’s work, and develop alongside groups as they change. We know that a major aspect of our success comes from the fact that our different services strengthen each other.
• The support we provide is above all practical: it is designed to give groups the tools they can use to overcome barriers to their activity.
• Groups value our consistency and stability. Any changes in how we support groups will be minor and gradual. We know we are already extremely successful at what we do, and don’t plan any major changes in our work.

The Resource Centre has been nominated to receive a donation from Waitrose via their Community Matters scheme.

They have £1000 to divide between three charities.

Ekhlas and Roy, Resource Centre trustees 2011-12, collecting our cheque from Waitrose in 2012.

Please ask for a green token when you shop at Waitrose on Western Road, and use it to vote for the Resource Centre. You can vote as many times as you like until the end of June.

In 2012 we received £317 from the same scheme. We bought a new PA system which has been used at 116 community events so far!

A big thank you to Ekhlas from the Christian Arabic Club for nominating us again.

We now have a DJ mixing desk available for groups to hire.

It allows you to mix and control music from two CD decks, or from an external music source such as a laptop or phone.

When combined with one of our PAs and our disco lights, it means you can hold a great party for your group, even if your budget is very small.

Local runner Gustavo is running the Brighton half marathon to raise money for us!

We are a very small organisation, and every penny raised will help us run services for local community groups. A little can go a long way – just £50 could pay for a new piece of equipment, a one-to-one advice session with a group, or an update to one of our useful information sheets.

Can you sponsor him? Every little helps!

Donate at https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/gustavoiriarte1

Brighton & Hove Council will be setting its budget for 2017-18 soon. They are considering making a big cut to the pot of money that the Resource Centre is funded from (the Third Sector Investment Programme). The Council’s funding is central to keeping the Centre going. Any cut would make things extremely difficult.

We want to continue to support community in groups in Brighton & Hove, but we need council funding to do so. Together with our partners, we have written a joint letter to the leader of the Council, explaining why we think reducing this funding is a mistake.

Even the council’s budget papers say reduced funding ‘may result in less “active citizenship” in neighbourhoods and communities’. Community groups help people to be active and healthy, and to connect with others. If support for these activities is reduced, it could end up costing the council and the health service more in the long run.

If you agree with us, it would be a great help if you could let your local councillors know that you think the Resource Centre should continue to be funded.

We have postcards in the Centre which you can fill in and send. Or you can enter your postcode on the Write To Them website to send an email to all your councillors.

We are celebrating our 40^th Anniversary with a week-long exhibition at the Jubilee Library next January, and we need your help! We are asking for community or voluntary groups who have used the Centre’s services at any time during the last four decades to send in their memories and photographs for inclusion in the exhibition.

Did you hire a van from the Resource Centre in the 1970s? Maybe you went to a punk concert in our original building at the top of North Road? Did the Resource Centre print your newsletter on our offset litho machine in the 1980s? Or does your school hire one of our candy floss machines every year for the Christmas fair?

We think our services must have made a difference to thousands of local people over the last 40 years, and we would like to invite them to help us celebrate by sharing their memories of the Centre. Please spread the word through your networks.

The exhibition will be on display in the Jubilee Library foyer from 16^th to 22^nd January, 2017. As well as covering the history of the Centre, it will promote our current work and we hope it will help us reach new groups who have not used the Centre before.

If you have memories or photographs to contribute, please email them to us on [email protected] by 16^th December.

We are grateful to everyone who took the time to respond to our 2016 survey in the summer. Once again, the results show that overall, our users think we’re doing a great job, which is always lovely to hear.

• 97% of our users were very satisfied with the service they received. The remaining 3% were satisfied.
• 100% of respondents agree that the Resource Centre makes life easier for their group.
• For most of our user groups, we are the only support agency they use.
• The work of our user groups benefits everyone in the city.

For more details see our summary report. We have taken note of all the comments and suggestions and we’ll be producing another report next year on the actions we’ve taken in response.