On March 11th we held our first ‘VCFSE Sector Assembly’ – the start of a bi-annual gathering of our sector to discuss all the latest news, funding streams, networking and more. (In this case, we even had a bit of yoga!). Let’s get into all that got discussed – we don’t want anyone missing out on info just because they were busy, we are aware there were other events on, on the day.
This event is here to pick up from Boroughwide Community Network‘s annual ‘Big Event’. We’re keen to ensure their legacy is carried forward and these opportunities are not lost. Please keep in mind many quotes are paraphrased.
The Beginning: Wigan Council on Progress With Unity and Pride In Place
The event opened with a quick intro from our Infrastructure Lead Alice Coren then followed by Wigan Council CEO Alison Mackenzie Folan to discuss Progress With Unity, why it matters and how it affects our sector.
Meaning can often be lost with agendas, so we’d just like to clarify what Progress With Unity actually is and actually means, we understand not everyone gets it. Follow that link to find out more – or just maybe, give it a google. In essence, it’s Wigan Council’s current ten year plan – laying out the ethics, values and methods they will use to make our Borough a better, community lead place built from an 18 month consultation.
It began with Alison stating that the ‘only way the Council can improve is to be alongside communities and removing red tape’. Overall, her talk reaffirmed Wigan Councils commitment to work with the Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprise Sector. Not against nor over – but with, as per the values of Progress With Unity.
She went on assuring attendees the national government is listening to our communities alongside investing in it – exemplified by works like Path To Purpose and the two million brought into the Borough or things like Pride in Place, empowering local people to decide what’s best for their towns.
Alongside this assurance, she wanted us to know the missions of Progress With Unity have been designed to directly tackle issues in the Borough, ensuring fairness in the Borough where there “there isn’t always fairness” and ensuring our neighbourhood’s flourish as some of our neighbourhood’s “don’t always feel like they’re flourishing”.
After, we had a little bit of info about the Live Well Spring Festival launch which began in Norley Hall at the adventure playground on the 10th – telling us what an exciting week it has been and how Andy Burnham listens to our communties and believed in the Wigan Borough’s Progress With Unity agenda.
All in all – Alison wanted us to know we are supported. At times it may not feel like it, but things are shifting, power and money is coming into our communities, and in Wigan Borough, it’s going to be faster than most due to the support and representation we have from ourselves and governmental partners.
Pride in Place
After Alison stepped off, up came Claire Burnham to talk about the Pride in Place!
Pride in Place is a government plan to help communities improve the places where they live. It gives money and support to neighbourhoods so local people can decide how to improve their local community, bringing communities together to encourage volunteering and create more opportunities for people to develop new skills and interests together. In short, it hopes to build stronger and safer communities, thriving neighbourhoods, and more control for local people.
Across Wigan Borough, there are three Pride in Place areas, with Leigh Town Centre being the first chosen a while back – and now two more:
- Platt Bridge & Spring View
- Marsh Green & Laithwaite
Both to receive £20,000,000 over the next 10 years, this work is direcly in line with the Progress With Unity plan and it’s goal to make our neighborhoods flourish. Pride in Place intended to directly harness “community energy”.
The two new Pride In Place areas are set to develop and recruit to their neighborhood boards over the next two months (March 2026 onwards…). These boards will decide how the Pride in Place funds are distributed across these areas and must 51% residents of the areas, ensuring the community has a voice.
If you’d like to find out more about Pride in Place, see here!
Download the Slides Here
Action Together and GM Live Well
Next up, Liz, the CEO of Action Together (The Local Infrastructure Organisation for Tameside, Rochdale and Oldham.)
A Local Infrastructure Organisation (LIO) is a support body for the voluntary, community, faith, and social enterprise (VCFSE) sector, explains 10GM. LIOs operate across Greater Manchester’s ten localities, providing capacity building, funding support, and networking, according to 10GM’s work. They serve as vital links, connecting local groups with larger partners like the NHS or local councils. We are the Wigan Borough’s LIO!
Liz wanted to talk about Greater Manchester’s ‘Live Well‘ movement – the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s agenda to bring about a radical shift in public service delivery at a neighbourhood level, underpinned by transformational ways of working between and across the statutory sector, Voluntary, Community Faith and Social Enterprise sector, and communities.
In Wigan Borough, this work is branded as Progress With Unity.
Find out more about Live Well here!
The Lottery Bid – £16,000,000 investment into our communities!
Liz wanted us to know Live Well is all about taking action. It’s about wealth and health building in our communites, tackling inequalities and is intended to shift our working culture to stop our systems creating unintentional barriers to wellbeing.
As part of this, Liz wanted us to know the recent National Lottery Bid from GMCA. Thanks to National Lottery players, 10GM, on behalf of Greater Manchester Live Well, will receive £16.5 million over four years from The National Lottery Community Fund, the UK’s largest community funder.
This investment in Live Well Spaces of Hope and Connection will create a network of 100+ inclusive, community-led and owned spaces across Greater Manchester where people can meet, belong and find everyday support.
Prioritising communities facing the greatest inequalities, the investment will strengthen social infrastructure and grow community action, power and wealth. Powered by the Live Well movement, VCFSE organisations, public services and residents will come together to share power, change systems and shape healthier, fairer, more connected places.
The Spaces of Hope and Connection programme will be managed by us across our Borough and will be one of the largest investments in community-led development in England across Greater Manchester. It will, regionally:
- Strengthen and grow social infrastructure that supports lasting community power, leadership and belonging across Greater Manchester.
- Supercharge and celebrate community-led action that builds connection, resilience, equity and community wealth.
- Generate and share nationally significant learning about what helps community-led spaces thrive long-term – influencing policy and practice locally, regionally and nationally.
We’re doing Live Well work differently in Wigan Borough. Rather than set up a flagship “Live Well Centre”, we’re putting the funding directly into our communities to do the well-being work. Due to this, the above Spaces of Hope and Connection work will look a little different for us than the above text – stay tuned for updates and find out more here!
“Together, we can prove the power of community“
Public Health and the Thrive in Five fund
We’ll only touch on this one as we think Healhtwatch Wigan and Leigh wrote a great article here, but to recap Lisa‘s talk from Wigan Council’s Public Health Department…
Two years ago, Wigan Public Health began mapping mental health support ‘assets’. with our sector. Through this, they designed their “Health Priorities” with the VCFSE sector.
This was the start of a journey we’re all still on in bringing £100,000 (£20,000 Grants) of Public Sector money into community mental well-being work. This fund is called Thrive In Five and will be launching over the next few months. Recipients will have to form a ‘Community of Practice’ taking forward learning about best practice in both the commissioning and delivery of well-being work with communities.
This is part of a longer term plan, to take the learning’s from this after it’s launched and spent to ensure more money from Public Health flows into our sector, supporting our communities in the work they do.
You can find our more about Thrive In Five and other funds discussed at the Meet here!
Download the Slides Here
Aging In Place is continuing!
Another quick one, but we’d be remiss not to mention Ageing In Place – the Council and community led work which ended last year to improve residents’ quality of life as they grow older. This is continuing under the Live Well banner, bringing new funds to this work. Thanks to Steven Eastwood from Wigan Athletic for talking about this.
Find our more about Ageing In Place here…
What exactly is Down to Earth?
Tom, from Groundwork’s Down To Earth spoke next about who they are and what they do.
Down to Earth is Wigan Borough’s Creative People and Place Programme, the anchor organisation for the arts, ensuring the local arts sector has a voice on a higher level and keeping it healthy with work, funds and more.
They fund events like Wigan Light Night, Light Up Leigh and more – ensuring the local arts are local and community led.
They’ve been involved in projects like The Fire Within and the Kid’s Business in the Makinson Arcade – supporting children to design and run a business for a day! They do a lot of work with figures like The Chubby Northerner too.
Find out more info about Down To Earth here!
Download the Slides Here
Finally, us!
Lastly, our CEO Karen Parker spoke. Karen spoke on how the community has achieved so much recently and thanked all those involved in making the change we’ve all been seeing as of late, including but not limited to:
- Gemma Atkinson of Douglas Valley Community
- Nicola Rigby of the Wigan Borough Communities Team
- Dave Baxter of Wigan and Leigh Community Charity
- Colin Greenhalgh of Groundwork
- Chris Hamnett of Embrace
- Phil Hirst of Boroughwide Community Network
- Stuart Parsons of Family Welfare
- And Charlotte from Mindful Events for helping us run The Big Meet!
We wouldn’t be were we are without the support and teamwork, so we’d love to thank everyone involved.
The Legacy of Wigan Council for Voluntary Services (CVS)
She then touched a meeting she’d had the week previous. A woman by the name of Dorothy Whittaker had been trying to make contact to discuss the “history of the CVS”, so they’d set up a meeting.
During which, they went over a document from 1986 written by a woman named Judy Robinson, who had sadly passed away 12 months previous. Judy had been the CEO of Wigan CVS, a precursor to us! Judy had been fighting the same battles we fight today, but 40 years ago! Karen herself said it had sounded scarily like she had wrote it herself.
In no way are we here to override the work done by those who have come before us. We are here to build upon this legacy, to fight these battles and make a difference for our communities.
Our Mission
This is why Karen has an ambition to bring 100% of potential community funds out of the Public Sector and into the local community!
We talked about our missions (Which can be found here!) – which is to support and champion residents and the VCFSE Sector to make positive change in the Wigan Borough. During Let’s Create Together, we heard you wanted a single point of contact which will bring about sustainable fund – and we really are dedicated to bringing this about.
So far we’ve brought over two million in funding, much of which wouldn’t of come to our communities without us being an independent community based organisation. There’s been bumps on the road – but we can do this together.
Lastly, Karen touched on our ‘Dispersed Leadership Model’. Essentially, we want to create a leadership model where a representative of every part of our sector sits on our board, to ensure a fair, transparent and equitable organsation with input from all sides, not just our own. You can see this full model on our slides from the event…
Download the Slides Here
What’s Next?
Stay tuned for updates on the funding pots mentioned in this article by singing up for our newsletter and joining our WhatsApp!
This is the first of many of these events – we intend to do these twice a year, so let us know how you’d like these to look, and we’ll see you at the next one…