PQASSO (Practical Quality Assurance Standard for Organisations) is a quality standard designed for the voluntary and community sector. Organisations can choose to use the criteria as a self-assessment tool or can go on to external accreditation and gain the Quality Mark at one of three levels, all of which are recognised and approved by the Charity Commission. This half day course provides an excellent introduction to this quality standard, which is now used by some statutory authorities as a pre-requisite for funding.
Often your recruitment and induction processes determine whether you retain your staff and volunteers. A poor induction often leads to a lack of productivity and motivation. This half day course is designed to help participants ensure that new staff receive a comprehensive and welcoming induction so that they can settle into their job or role quickly and with confidence. The course can be run as a one-off session or can be incorporated into a series of sessions on managing staff.
This course, which can be run as a half day (3.5 hours) or a whole day course, is designed to help those who chair or participate in meetings to understand how to run effective meetings that are constructive, concise and actually achieve something! The course can be adapted to cover meetings in general or focus on specific types of meetings such as trustee, director or committee meetings, staff or project meetings.
This half day or whole day course is designed to support both novice and experienced trustees in providing effective governance within their organisations. It considers their roles and responsibilities in general before looking at particular areas in more detail. The half day course covers all the essential information; the whole day session includes specific exercises and case studies to develop the participants’ problem-solving skills.
This half day course is designed for new treasurers, general trustees and management committee members or staff who work in smaller organisations to understand the basics of how to manage the finances within a voluntary or community organisation. It covers all the essential issues ranging from drawing up a budget to ensuring that the organisation has sound financial procedures.
This half day course is designed to help participants plan and promote events, whether for fundraising, social or educational purposes. It provides practical tips on a wide range of subject areas from choosing events to determining budgets and publicity methods. The course can be adapted to take in any type of events or can concentrate on particular areas such as organising fundraising events, conferences or cultural events.
This half day course is designed to help relatively inexperienced managers and supervisors to manage their staff effectively. The course can be run as a one-off session or can be incorporated into a series of sessions on managing staff. Alternatively it can be run as a day session and incorporate elements of the Managing the Difficult Staff member course. The course can concentrate on managing paid staff or (for voluntary and community sector organisations) can include aspects of supervising and supporting volunteers as well.
This half day or whole day course is designed for those who are new to either working in or with the voluntary and community sector, including staff, councillors and committee members working in statutory agencies. It will help you understand how the sector works, the various legal forms of organisations, issues of governance and sustainability so that you are able to work more effectively in partnership with the sector and understand its funding needs. The half day course covers the basic information; the longer course can include further subjects such as the use of volunteers and typical issues that face trustee boards and management committees.
This half day course provides participants with the knowledge and skills to write a simple but effective business plan for their organisation. It considers aspects of why business planning is important, what background research is needed, what subject areas to include and how to monitor progress against the business plan. For in-house courses the session could be extended to a whole day with participants spending the afternoon working on a first draft of a business plan.
This half day course is designed to help participants in the voluntary and community sector to monitor and evaluate the work of their organisation effectively and ensure that their working practices are robust and fit for purpose. It can also be relevant to those staff in statutory agencies who work on community projects.