Five Bullet Friday (7 December 2018)

Welcoming even more new members to the partnership, everyone had an opportunity to reflect on effectiveness of this OCN partnership approach. Feedback from around the table was really positive. The connections that have been made, new funding opportunities and the effective partnership building so far were all mentioned. Attendees highlighted communications, particularly these 5 Bullet Fridays, as working very well. I have attached our strand leader updates produced for the partnership meeting.

• We explored some exciting ideas for taking OCN communications a stage further. For example:
• Providing a regular OCN drop in (avoiding days that would clash with already planned partners groups).
• Producing an OCN quarterly newsletter. This would have a participant involvement focus, feeding back and ‘closing the involvement loop’ so participants see outcomes from their input.
• We also talked about working together on neighbourhood specific post diagnostic support packs.

Partners are very welcome to be involved in any of these. Also partners contributing to the newsletter may be a way of capturing the positive ‘ripple effect’ we know is happening from OCN activity.

At our volunteer community researcher ‘wee gathering’ volunteers reviewed how the surveys and the OCN project generally was going from the community researcher perspective. One point raised was how thank, and follow up with, participants who were kind enough to fill in the survey. Volunteers suggested we organise a tea party event. We will invite participants to come along to hear a short update from strand leads then enjoy a delicious tea party as a thank you. Strand leads will be available to highlight what relaxed get together will be coming up in the near future for each strand and how folk can get involved if they choose to.

Our OCN annual report was submitted successfully to Life Changes Trust at the end of September. Colm from LCT gave positive feedback about the report. I wanted to share this with everyone because everyone has contributed to OCN being a success and particularly as the volunteers are specifically mentioned. Well done everyone!

Colm said: ‘we’re really impressed with what you have achieved in the first year, but I wanted to highlight a few things in particular’:

• The partnerships within the project team, and connections to other services, are outstanding, and you can already see how they have made the project stronger.
• As the report points out, this is an ambitious and innovative project so the challenges that you have overcome should hopefully give you confidence that you will be able to deal with those that will arrive over the next two years. We certainly have confidence in you.
• We’re excited at where things will go as time progresses, particularly in Year Three, so we will try our best to be flexible and support you.
• A special word to the volunteers that you have recruited. We know that volunteers can bring so much to a project, but the number of applicants and the contribution of the volunteers that you chose have is really impressive. Well done to everybody.
• I also wanted to praise your website, which is outstanding, and the ‘5 Bullet Fridays’ email which I in particular have found really informing and helpful in building a picture of your project.

The OCN team wanted to say a Huge THANK YOU to all our dedicated volunteers and the fantastic work you have done over the year. We, and the project overall, have really benefitted greatly from your input and involvement and we hope you have all got something out of being involved. As we get closer to 2019, next year is going to be really exciting with many more opportunities to be involved and help shape what is an exciting, different, innovative, complex and highly meaningful project.

I have been doing this sort of work a long time and I have tried to organise thank you events for volunteers on the ruin up to Christmas in the past. Understandably people are trying to get a lot done before Christmas and sometimes can’t make it. Because we would like as many of you as possible to enjoy a thank you from OCN, I will be organising a date in January for us all to meet up and go 10 pin bowling. We will cover the cost of the bowling as a small way of saying thank you. I hope as many of you can join us as possible so we can socialise, have some fun, and say thank you for all your input.

Thanks for reading

Whatever you are up to this Christmas have a fantastic time. See you all on the other side!