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It has come to our attention that someone has hacked our website and added pages that seem to be phishing scams, trying to obtain personal information.  We have been sent these links from third parties and are now investigating and working to make the website secure again.  General navigation through the website does not seem to find these pages, but the link has been emailed out.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may casue and assure you that we are doing everything we can to remove this.

Many thanks

The Learning Network for Communities

We are pleased to announce that we have won the NLDC (Neighbourhood Learning for Deprived Communites) with Bradford College for the third year running.  The project delivers taster courses, employability training and Information, advice and Guidance sessions to the unemployed of Bradford, through our four delivery partners:

• Millan Centre,
• West Bowling Training and advice centre
• Womenzone
• Sangat centre

Watch this space for developments of this  project.

On the 3rd October 2012, the Learning Network for Communities held its 3rd annual general meeting at the Al Hikmah centre in Batley.  The event was well attended by our membership, supporters, partners and other interested parties, and was really a success. 

The day started with the typical AGM fayre, passing of the finaincial statements, a great round up of the year's events by our chair and voting for new members of the Executive Committee.  A new member was voted in, Clinton Griffiths representing Brifge-it Housing team, a new member to the Network.  Clinton formally served on the committee representing Urbanbiz in Bradford, but that position will now be taken by Mcmillan Serrant.

The event continued with Ibrar Hussain, Network Coordinator, giving a good summary of the projects the Network is currently working on, what our current position is and how we hope to develop in the future.  He was followed by our key-note speaker, Sue Vasey of Your Consortium, a similar but larger organisation based in North Yorkshire.  Sue spoke about her organisation and how it operated, the current situation for third sector organisations and future joint working for Your Consortium and the Network.  It was an interesting talk and provoked lively discussions from the people who attended.

After a brief break, we brought everyone together to ask them their opinions on the current situation for their and other organisaitons and what needs to be looked at by the Network and other bodies over the next year.  we got some great responses which should really help us shape our programme for the next year and gives us information and ammunition for when we are approaching funders and stakeholders.

The event closed with the sad part of the day, Jude Lancaster of Lancaster Consulting, the company secretary for the Network, gave a heart warming thank you speech to Patrick-Spencer Salami, who is standing down as chair of the Network after five years.  Patrick was a little overwhelmed by the speech and gifts, but we wish him luck in all his future endeavors.

The Learning Network for Communities is happy to announce that we have received nearly £10,000 from Awards for All fund at the Big Lottery. This is to fund a pilot project that we are hoping to attract more funding to and grow the project over the next year. The idea of the project would be to set up "job clubs" across West Yorkshire, offering one to one IAG support, help with CV and career planning, job search support and help with work experience and volunteering placements. We will be putting together job bulletin emails to be sent out to the participants and the centres in the area to share with their own clients and also an interview and application bootcamp email to help people get ready for work. We are looking for member organisations, one in each district, to host the job clubs. Any member organisation who is interested should email Ruth Gray by clicking here. We are hoping that we can use this project to help train volunteers within these organisations to continue the project if and when the funding runs out, so we hope that it will have a legacy and it will help people get more experience to aid them in the job search.

On 7th December 2011 the Network held an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) with its members to discuss the future of the Network.  Firstly, members voted to change the Network’s name to reflect more accurately the work it does.  The new name, “Learning Network for Communities”, hopes to emphasise to learners and statutory partners that the services the Network members provide are there for everybody in disadvantaged communities and not just black and minority ethnic learners.

Members were also concerned that now West Yorkshire Learning Consortium has closed down, there may be voluntary organisations from the wider community that might benefit from the services the Network provides to its members.  In the past, these have included accredited teacher training, information, advice and guidance training, leadership and coaching support as well as day to day advice on raising funds and bidding as part of a consortium of community learning providers for contracts with local councils and the Skills Funding Agency.  With the change to the constitution, these community centres can now apply to join the Network.

The members also voted on introducing a new membership scheme which will see their members reaping a host of benefits for a small charge. Fees are waived for smaller organisations with a turnover of less then 10k, organisations over 10k have a scaling membership fee depending on their turnover. The fees have been kept low in recognition of the financial hardship all organisations are facing.

Patrick - Spencer Salami, chair of the Network said “in this economic climate, it is evident that many small VCS will suffer as a result of the cuts and the plans for single contracts”. He added that, “By restructuring our objects to reflect the changing demographics of struggling organisations, we can become a stronger voice lobbying for whole of the learning and skills sector in West Yorkshire”.

 

The BME Learning Network and Leeds Reach are pleased to announce that Leeds Reach have achieved the Matrix Standard in Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) Services.  This will be a valuable tool for Leeds Reach as they deliver IAG and seek funding to continue their essential work with young people.

 

Leeds Reach were assisted in gaining this kitemark by the BME Learning Network through the Build2Impact project, which aimed to build the capacity of Network members.  The Network provided them with one to one support in building their portfolio for the assessment and also help with the costs of the assessment.  

 

Ian St Rose of Leeds Reach says “The staff and management committee of Leeds Reach would like to thank all partners who contributed and supported us in achieving this quality standard. We welcome critical feedback/assessments and anything that helps us to improve our practices/delivery can only be of benefit to our service users, partners and the organisation.”

 

Congratulations to all the staff at Leeds Reach.

On the 31^st March 2011 the BME Learning Network held its second Annual General meeting at the Mirage Bradford Banqueting Suite.  This was again a great success with over 50 members, stakeholders and friends attending the event.  Alongside the AGM, the event was also the dissemination event for the Build2Impact project which ended in March and had been running for three years to build the capacity of the Network members.

 

For more information on this event please click on the link below:

 

http://www.bmelearning.co.uk/bme/cms.php?op=index&content_type=2

The BME Learning Network produced a film for you to see what we have achieved over the last few years, through both the Skills2Work and the Build2Impact projects.  The film was produced with monies received from Awards for All, the National Lottery, and will help us promote the Network to potential funders and other stakeholders.

 

We aim to have the video on the website soon, but in the meantime, to see the film follow the link below:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU9hLH99wZs

 

Please share this with as many people as you can!

In September the final cohort of learners finished and passed the Preparing to Teach in the Life Long Learning Sector qualification under the Build2Impact project.  With the project drawing to a close, this final group of learners brought the total teachers and tutors trained by the Network through this project to an amazing 26!!

The eight people who passed on this final course are:

 

David Dowse - Lancaster Consulting

Ruth Gray - BME Learning Network

Aqila Choudhry – People in Action

Andy Jones – LASSN

Paula Johnson – Trescom

Samantha Haley – Trescom

Jatinder Dulay – Nari Ekta

Gursharn Preet Kaur – Nari Ekta

 

Congratulations to them all!!

On the 28th July 2010 the BME Learning Network, in partnership with the National Apprenticeship Service and BTEG, held a consultation meeting called Tackling Race Inequality: Closing the Ethnic Minority Apprenticeship Gap.

The event was held at Mercury House, Manchester Road in Bradford and had a great turn out from local councils over Yorkshire, business leaders, community groups and training providers.  After Patrick-Spencer Salami, the Chair of the BME Learning Network and CEO of REEMAP,  introduced the day and Jeremy Crook OBE of BTEG spoke about some of the general issues that were affecting apprenticeships, Delroy Beverley from InCommunities took to the stage.  InCommunities is a huge social housing company in Bradford, and Delroy gave an inspiring talk on the changes he had made in recruitment and advertising of the apprenticeships and what that had done to increase BME young people applying for apprenticeships in his organisation and women applying for non traditional roles.  Hughon Condor of PATH Yorkshire then followed with an explanation of  his Positive Action programme and how this could work for other people, including a pre-apprenticeship course to get people ready to apply.

The group then split into four parts to discuss some of the barriers to apprenticeships, good practice and awareness issues for apprenticeships for BME young people.  This information was fed back to the National Apprenticeship Service to help shape their work for the coming years.

The event finished with networking and lunch and was a great success for all those that attended.

 

 

Last week the BME Learning Network (WY) achieved another of its goals; it achieved Charity Status with the Charity Commission.  The process was a long one as we had to change aspects of our constitution to achieve this goal.  As all of you who attended the AGM are aware, the changes to the constitution were voted on and passed unanimously by all the members present.  These changes allowed us to finalise our application.

The staff of the Network are now busily hunting funds using our new found status so we can continue the good work we have done so far.

Thanks to all the members, the Executive Committee and the staff at the Charity Commission for their support during this process

The BME Learning Network held its first AGM on the 22nd April 2010 at the Aagrah Midpoint Restaurant between Leeds and Bradford.  The event was a huge success, with over 70 members, stakeholders and friends attending and two amazing speakers, Caryl Agard, Voice4Change, and Khalida Ashrafi, Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

To read more and see the pictures, go to:

http://www.bmelearning.co.uk/bme/cms.php?op=index&content_type=2

The Network is pleased to announce the launch of the BaseCamp resource pack for all members.  The pack is a comprehensive guide to quality practices and contains example policies, procedures and business plans that can be adapted to any organisation. 

We hope that the pack will be a useful tool for all our organisations from big to small and we would appreciate your feedback on it.  Please follow the link below to find the toolkit:

http://www.bmelearning.co.uk/bme/cms.php?op=index&content_type=18

After two cohorts of the PTLLS course (Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector) we are pleased to announce we have a 100% pass rate of all those who completed the course and handed in course work.  This is an amazing achievement for all those who took the course and it goes without saying the excellent tutor, Heather Levene. 

Congratulations go to: 

Qashif Parvez—Trescom

Samra Dad—Lancaster Consulting

Dr Clement Katalushi—ABCD Ltd

Christopher O’Hagan—Trescom

David Lightfoot—Solange Robinson Consultancy

Iris Gabrielle—Meridian Centre

Dr Geetha Upadhyaya—Kala Sangam

Jude Lancaster—Lancaster Consulting

Patrick-Spencer Salami—REEMAP

Allan Sam—Solange Robinson Consultancy

Rizwan Anjum—Halifax Opportunities Trust

James McGuire—Beaumont Street Studios

Nick Marsden—Beaumont Street Studios

Sam Harvey—Beaumont Street Studios

Robert Barns—Solange Robinson Consultancy

Rahat Hussein—Karmand Community Centre

Hashim Vali—Ravensthorpe Community Centre

Qashim Ali—ANNISA UK

Certificates were presented at the AGM on the 22nd April 2010 at the Aagrah Midpoint Restaurant.

 

 

In January we heard the amazing news that Asha in Leeds became our fourth Network member to achieve the Matrix Accreditation through the support of the Build2Impact project.  We are now happy to say that Solange Robinson Consultancy became our fifth member to receive the award!

So far three other Network members have been accredited to the Matrix standard through the Build2Impact project for the BME Learning Network.  Our other three successful members are REEMAP, Leeds, Nari Ekta, Leeds and Ravensthorpe Community Centre in  Dewsbury.

The project gave support and guidance in preparing for the assessment and help in the construction of their portfolio.  They were given six days help from  M. Ibrahim of West Bowling Community Training and Advice Centre who was commissioned by the project to help the organisations.  They were also given a financial contribution from the Network for help in achieving this award. 

The Matrix Standard is a Quality Assurance Kite mark for organisations that deliver Information, Advice and Guidance to their clients.  It helps you demonstrate that you have a well organised and quality provision of this service, and will also help you put good quality procedures in place in your organisation.

The picture on the top right - Staff at Ravensthorpe Community Centre with their Matrix Certificate

The picture on the bottom right - Staff at Asha Neighbourhood Project with their certificate

On the 9th December 2009 the Network held a successful and busy event celebrating the end of the Skills2Work project and launching the new resources from the BME Learning Network.  For more information see the Events section of the website.

The BME Learning Network is happy to announce the launch of its new website and also the imminent arrival of a comprehensive toolkit to help organisations embed quality systems.  Funded by CapacityBuilders, the Build2Impact project for the Network aims to improve the quality in organisations to aid them secure more funding and a sustainable future.  So far, the Build2Imapct project has helped organisations with matrix accreditation, trained members in the Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong learning Sector (PTTLS) qualification, helped members get IAG qualifications and launched the Super-Coach scheme.

The new website has a more user friendly and professional look and hosts many of the features of the old website, including the member’s directory, project updates and the forum.  We have also added more information on the projects, news pages, events and training diaries and e-learning (first module to be launched in March 2010.)  Members are advised they need to get a new password for the website and can do this by going to the members directory and applying for a password.

Patrick Spencer Salami, Chair of the BME Learning Network, said “This resource is a key channel for the Network to showcase the successful work it has delivered and continues to deliver.”  He added: “we give a sense of responsibility and ownership to our members to feed stories, information and intelligence to this site so that other members and groups can benefit.

 

Secondly the BME Learning Network launched the Basecamp resource pack that will soon be available to members through the website.  The pack is a comprehensive guide to quality practices and contains example policies, procedures and business plans that can be adapted to any organisation.

 

If you would like any further information, do not hesitate to contact the Build2Impact team.

 

 The Build2Impact project held its first ever course in April this year, it was the NOCN Level 2 Award in Information, Advice and Guidance.

Congratulations go to the following people who gained this qualification:

 * Azra Ahmed (Hamara)

* Millie Brown (Beaumont Street Studios)

* Ceaser Chari ( PATH Yorkshire)

* Nahila Faroon (Ravensthorpe Community Centre)

* Ruth Gray (Build2Impact Project)

* Sonia Hines ( PATH Yorkshire)

* Kirsten Hunter (Beaumont Street Studios)

* Kanees Saber (West Bowling Community Centre)

* Anita Sekhon (Nari Ekta)

* Kanval Soor (PATH Yorkshire)