Cycling proficiency

Fri 12th Sep 2014

Having spent so much of my time working in Higher Education, September has always seemed to be a good time for new resolutions and I will always associate this time of year with the cycle of the new academic year, the gathering of friends returning from the summer recess, excitement and anticipation.

Torfaen CAB is now an eighty strong organisation and time spent developing our community of staff and volunteers has got to be time well spent. This blog is one such new start.

The Bureau has stayed busy even through the summer, this week alone 230 people found their way though  our doors for help.

September sees the end of the Digital Advice Pilot. Andrea and Lynne, with a little help from Natalie and Allison have been giving debt advice by webchat to clients visiting the debt pages of Adviceguide. It has proved to be a very efficient way of providing extra help to people on the website and is engaging with different groups. It is definitely not a replacement for face to face but it certainly has its place. We are optimistic that following the success of the pilot we will be well placed to win one of the digital advice contracts we expect to become available in April 2015.

This week also marks the submission of bids to run the next round of advice projects and over the next few weeks we hope for the good news that our Communities First project, our Better Advice Better Lives our Housing Advice project, our Disability Benefits project and our bid to provide extra benefits advice across Torfaen, Newport and Monmouthshire will all be successful with funding guaranteed until at least 2016 and in some cases until 2018

We have had our disappointments too. The Money Advice Service discontinued the funding for our Debt project in Monmouthshire and Peter Day who worked on that project left us last week for a new position in Bristol. Peter was 10 years with the Bureau and we will miss him but we are delighted he has found a new start as well.

We have welcomed some new people too, the freshest of whom, Clive, joins us from Caerphilly CAB where has had performed a number of advice roles. On the eve of joining us Clive bagged the coveted Adviser of the Year award at CAB Conference. We are delighted you got some well deserved recognition and we are equally delighted to welcome you to TCAB. Welcome aboard Clive we hope you enjoy working here with us well into the future.

So in the spirit of some more new beginnings, the bids are in and the fingers firmly crossed as seven of our projects enter their next funding cycle. If all goes well we can expect a well deserved period of stability for an organisation that has taken some pretty big changes in its stride over the last year. Whatever the outcome we know we are a resilient organisation and powered by whiling and able people we will make the very best of what the new cycle of events offers.

I look forward to seeing everyone at the Team Meeting on 24 September 1pm in the Cwmbran meeting room.

Mal