The prime minister launched a new Government healthy living initiative with a work out at the Cen

Northern Ireland’s umbrella body NICVA points out that the ‘register of approved charities’ being promoted by PCI Consulting is an unofficial initiative, and is not supported by them. Draft charity legislation which will bring in an official charity register for NI could be out for consultation in the next month.

See http://www.nicva.org/index.cfm/section/news/key/PCIconsult, or the ‘register’ at http://www.approvedcharity.com.

Coinciding with its official launch, Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator’s web site has been revamped (http://www.oscr.org.uk), hosting the new Scottish Charity Register of some 20,000 existing charities.

The site hasn’t quite got accessibility/usability right, for instance with links under the front page ‘What you need to know’ variously leading, without warning, to pdfs and other sites as well as their own web pages.

The latest publication is initial guidance for charities and charity trustees on the new Charity Test, in pdf (79kb).

This year’s Charities’ Online Accounts Awards are open for entries, split into five income categories. They aim to “reward charities that are showing their commitment to transparency by publishing their financial information online”.

http://www.cafonline.org/onlineawards/main.cfm.

A Financial Inclusion Taskforce campaign, funded from the government’s Financial Inclusion Fund, will provide training and tools to charities and housing associations to help them help their clients to open bank accounts and obtain affordable credit.

Treasury press release at http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/newsroom_and_speeches/press/2006/press_30_06.cfm, or credit union body ABCUL news at http://www.abcul.org/page/news.cfm#297.

The National Association of Hospital and Community Friends, the largest volunteering organisation in health and social care, has been relaunched as Attend. Their rebranded web site is at http://www.attend.org.uk.

The connected Mental Health Learning Network is using a blog at http://www.attend.org.uk/resources/network/ to give details of regional meetings, news and updates.

A steering group has been set up to look at forming an Association for Volunteer Managers, for England (SAVM already exists for Scotland), to champion and represent all managers of volunteers regardless of field, discipline or sector.

Five sub-groups will look at External Consultation, Legal and Finance, Online Services, Marketing and Publicity, Membership Package, and anyone interested in getting involved in one of these should contact John Ramsey on 020 7833 5278 or at john.ramsey@citizensadvice.org.uk by 15th May.

(Source: UKVPM)

Just open is a new programme, Connecting Communities Plus, Community Grants, for small, locally run and managed voluntary and community organisations (income less than £50,000 per year) “who want to improve opportunities for people locally and to improve relations between people of different ethnic and/or faith backgrounds”.

Grants of up to £12,000 are administered by CDF on behalf of the Home Office. First round closes 5th July.

See http://www.cdf.org.uk/practice/grants/default.asp?xsl_argx=2.

NetSquared have set up a ‘Nonprofit & NGO podcasting resource center’ covering issues around creating such online audio files, and some examples of how to use as part of a charity’s communication effort. American focus of course.

http://learn.netsquared.org/nonprofit-ngo-podcasting.

VIP Software guides have been written for people using screen magnifiers and/or the Jaws screen reader, dealing with various aspects of Windows XP and a few useful applications. http://vip.chowo.co.uk.

(From UKRiders list)

‘Can community ICT initiatives increase social capital and improve the quality of life?’ is the title of an article on eGov monitor. Two researchers discuss the evidence for both short and long term effects of community networks and give policy recommendations.

At http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/5541, or the paper it is based on is in pdf, 928kb, at http://www.essex.ac.uk/chimera/content/pubs/wps/CWP-2006-06-Local-ICT-Social-Capital.pdf.

‘Strengthening Global Civil Society’ is a research paper from the Institute for Public Policy Research which argues that “while global civil society is not inherently progressive there are plenty of recent examples” and identifies ways that progressive forces can be strengthened.

Download in pdf (188kb) via http://www.ippr.org.uk/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=447.

(Source: VSSN list)