Tick and Tock

Tick Report

Tick, otherwise known as the short life working group on the sustainability of the SHINE volunteer network, arose from Cathy Smith’s 2005 paper.  Although current volunteering, in particular in the working groups, is high in SHINE, this is not always the case.  So we launched a short life working group in 2006 to move forward some of the paper’s suggestions.

During the past year Tick has comprised of 4 members, myself, Shona McQuistan, George Dougary and Tracey McKee.

What has Tick achieved?  We have investigated the possibilities of expanding SHINE’s social networking capacity by setting up a trial of NHS Education for Scotland’s shared space to facilitate the group’s work.  This has led onto enthusiasm from the website and CPD groups to set up a study day later in the year on these new technologies such as RSS, blogs and wikis.

We created a draft workplan for 06/07 with input from all SHINE working groups and Committee members.  In the coming year we hope to expand this workplan into a 3 year rolling development plan and publish it on the website.

We have also been working hard to make the role and procedures of SHINE itself more transparent.  Committee members have been producing role and procedures documents for all Committee posts and activities.  These are now available on the SHINE website.  This should enable all members to make an informed decision when deciding to volunteer for the SHINe Committee.  The procedures, in particular, will enable a continuity of good practice when Committee members change.  This has been a large, time consuming project for the SHINE Committee.

Sometimes though it is the smaller undertakings that can be useful – the new membership form now has a tick box to allow volunteers to come forward at renewals time.  The volunteer flyer, now circulated at all CPD events, is also to encourage any and all members to partipate in SHINE matters one way or another.

There are still plenty of opportunities to find out what makes SHINe tick in the coming year, but I personally would be interested if there was enthusiasm for some form of mentoring project.  Let me know if you think the same.

Lynn Easton
Lead of TOCK short life working group on the sustainability of the SHINe volunteer network

 

TOCK

This group was taking forward the process of the move to charitable status after receiving a mandate from the membership in 2006 to do so. The group consisted of Paul Herbert, Andy Jackson and Joanna Ptolomey. A meeting had discussed the way forward and identified documentation which needed to be completed in order to effect the transition to charitable status, and also possible changes to the SHINe constitution. Further meetings would take place to work on drafting the documentation and making the move at some point later in the year.

Andy Jackson
Lead of TOCK short life working group on the move towards charitable status for SHINe