Our Annual General Meeting (AGM) and panel discussion last year around the theme of a Resilient BAME Voluntary and Community sector was very successful and stimulated engaging discussion with our members and the wider audience on the day. Following this success, BSWN was delighted to host an AGM Conference this year titled ‘Building Black Futures: Delivering Equitable Outcomes’ on Tuesday 26th November between 9.00am and 1.30pm at the City Hall, Bristol.
Preceding the Conference was a short Annual General Meeting attended by thirty members who approved the minutes of the last meeting and accounts before we delightedly shared the news of several new trustees joining our organisation this year. To find out about our Board of Trustees, please see our website page here.
A long-serving member of the BSWN Team, Ms Alexandra MacRae who served as our Company Secretary over the past few years, has stepped down from her official role and the BSWN Team, with our thanks for her excellent service to the organisation.
The Conference began promptly at ten o’clock with a welcome from the event Chair Dr. Marlene Ellis who welcomed all 90 guests and invited the key note speakers to share their perspective. Deputy Mayor Asher Craig about the role of the BAME Voluntary and community sector in the city, followed by Rita Chadha, CEO of Small Charities Coalition. They both agree that “there is a lot of potential in Black-led charities, and we’ve barely scratched the surface”. The final speaker Kunle Olulode, CEO of Voice4ChangeEngland, also highlighted the importance of the youth voice in building stronger Black futures.
Our director Sado Jirde shared with the audience the progress we’ve made over the past year in the ares of Economic and Cultural Inclusion. As our approach to support for the escort and policy advice is strongly evidence-based, we were delighted to launch not only our Annual Impart report, but also two of our research reports into the state of the Black-led VCSE and Social Enterprise Sectors. To read these reports, please see our Issue page here.
Sado invited Anndeloris Chacon (Bristol Black Carers) and Abdul Ahmed (Bristol Somali Forum) to share their experience of working with our Associate Sona Mahtani as part of the ‘Super Six’ organisations working on increasing their capacity, connectivity, and improving their sustainability through dedicated programme as part of BSWN’s Sector development strategy. Summarising her experience, Anndeloris said; “I am part of the super 6. We have been brought together in a space that allowed us to work with each other and we started sharing. We have the resources to make things happen, we have the skills. We will change Bristol”.
The floor was opened to the audience for a short Q&A session.
Q: “I believe there’s a whole group of black people out there who don’t know what’s going on: how do we reach out to them?”
Asher responded clearly: "We need to ensure that that information is available everywhere, where we shop, where we go.” Kunle added that “organisations such as BSWN need to be supported doing this work and reaching out to grassroots organisations and communities” in order to keep reaching our to the communities that are in need of information.
Q: “How do we involve our young people?”
Echoing his opening speech, Kunle highlighted that “our sector has failed to engage the young people, we need to lay down the path to make them comfortable to step up." Highlighting the role of active engagement, Asher added that "the new generations need a place to come together and start their own thing. They need a hub, which is what BSWN is proposing”, referring to the Enterprise Hub BSWN is working on implementing.
Following a short break, the Conference resumed with the panel discussion that hosted four local and regional funders Debbie Pippard (Barrow Cadbury Trust), Danielle Cohen (Power to Change), Keith Houghton (Bristol City Council) and Ronnie Brown (Quartet Community Foundation) on the topic of Funding for Race Equality.
Facilitating the discussion, Sado began by asking the funders ‘how to work towards embedding race equality in funding?’
Keith highlighted that "the conversations we had recently put a lot of importance on equity and how not all people start from the same ground. I think we have to make a change together, I think we have started”. Both Debbie and Danielle echoed his observation and highlighted the role of funders in the necessary change; “We need to educate ourselves as funders and really start to understand the challenges and how to create systemic change. Not just an intervention. Working with BSWN, we recognise the challenges to the sustainability of many of these (black-led) organisations. I’m grateful for the privilege of working with BSWN.”
The Q&A session with the audience also helped highlight the need for funders to build on the skills and assets already existing in the community organisations. Keith highlighted the continues work to include the community organisations in the area in shaping the opportunities and support provided by the local funders: ”the report into the Infrastructure support for the sector is launching next week, and we want you to know that it has been heavily influenced by you, your feedback through BSWN as well. The representation of BAME orgs in this process has been very high. We need to support the organisations that have assets to activate them, and back the resourcefulness of these communities.”
The event was closed with final remarks from the Chair and thanks to the audience for an engaging discussion. For further highlights from the event, please see our twitter profile @BlackSWNet with the live-tweeted captions.