Our Plans for 2006 - 2007
2006/07 could be a "make or break" year for AfSL. Our main funding from
DEFRA will only last for 1 year after this, so we urgently need to find ways of
making AfSL financially viable. And we also want to see action for
sustainable living take root in other parts of the country, building on what we
have learned in . All this while maintaining and developing our
current service, with what is quite a young and small organisation. Quite
a challenge!
Two themes run through everything that AfSL does:
- Sustainability - the need for us all
to make significant lifestyle changes if we are to create a sustainable world.
We define sustainability as:
“the need to ensure a
better quality of life for all, now, and into the future, in a just and
equitable manner, while living within the limits of supporting ecosystems”
- Localness - the importance of
strengthening local links so that issues of sustainability can be tackled from
a local perspective. It is essentially a "Human Scale" approach:
“living as if people
and their communities really mattered, which implies a shift towards more local
decision-making, and local work, food, energy and exchange: it means people
taking responsibility for themselves, those around them and the environment they
share in common”
We have used these two themes to review our goals and activities, and
identified a number of key issues:
- Volunteers - volunteers increase the
skills and knowledge that AfSL can draw on, enabling us to expand while still
being driven by what local people want to do. We need to think about how
we support both individual volunteers and inclusive local action groups.
Tasks will include developing resources for volunteers and a volunteer
database.
- Support systems - AfSL is all about
supporting people and we do this in a flexible, responsive way. We need
to "support the supporters" so that our staff have access to a range of
materials and tools. Tasks will include developing "off the shelf"
resources for use with different clients, our policies and procedures, and our
information systems.
- Funding - most of our funding comes
from DEFRA and is renewed annually, so we need to diversify our sources of
income and make them more secure. Tasks will include exploring
possibilities for in-kind and cash funding, sponsorship, affiliate deals and
direct income generation activities, and a marketing campaign.
- Moving to scale - we want to see if
our approach can work in other places. Tasks will include developing
different models for expansion and working towards a "
Sustainability Week" showcase for potential partners.
- Service model - our basic model works
well and we have lots of ideas about how we could build on this. Tasks
will include exploring ways of developing local supplies of sustainable goods
and services, and of facilitating links between organisations and community
groups.
Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) recently funded a management consultant, Gill
Huggon, to give AfSL a "healthcheck".
This was very positive, and made a number of specific recommendations [link to
doc here].
If you think you could help us to achieve our goals, please
contact us using our volunteer enquiry service.
29th August 2006
AfSL's targets for 2006-07, as agreed with DEFRA
AfSL's main funders are currently DEFRA. We are required to submit
plans for next year by 18th November 2005. Our aims are to:
a) Increase the overall rate of households provided with a service to an
average of 30 per week through appropriate publicity
b) Develop communities of interest and local initiatives at an average of 1
every month
c) Produce guides to new areas of sustainability every 3 months (up to at
least 10 guides) and review at least annually
d) Conclude a full range of affiliate deals for each new sustainablility
area and review at least annually
e) Test out different ways of providing the service – using action research
to try out new or modified approaches - in an average of 1 local geographical
or non-geographical community every month
f) Commission an independent external evaluation of the services, taking
account of process and outcome learning from the initial evaluation of year 1
(April – May 2006; evaluation to be completed and report written by March
2007)
g) Decide which of our 3 localities (Chorlton, Hulme and Old Trafford) can
become self-supporting the earliest and begin a planned process of handing
over activities from the Sustainability Consultant to local people and
developing a support network (April 2006 – March 2007)
h) Make funding bids and negotiate contracts with “mainstream” funders as
appropriate, using evidence from the evaluations (June 2006 and ongoing)
i) Develop a strategy for national roll out of services and AfSL’s
organizational development to support the roll out and maintenance of services
(December 2006, implementation ongoing)
If you would like to comment on these plans, or to help to develop Action for
Sustainable Living, contact [email protected]
4th November 2005
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