A further two members of the board of the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator are being recruited. The Scottish government has agreed that members can now be paid, £200 a day plus expenses.

Closing date 15th February. To find out more, see http://www.oscr.org.uk/NewsItem.aspx?ID=1cfed8e1-fd70-41e8-b18b-5ecce6bed3f5.

Social networking sites like MySpace and FaceBook have featured prominently in discussions of online communication, but are they necessarily a good fit for your voluntary organisation?

Idealware, the American nonprofit review resource, has a good article exploring whether such sites are right for you. http://www.idealware.org/articles/should_you_social_network.php.

Social Enterprise West Midlands is to use Skype internet telephony chat software to hold ‘virtual meetings’ from February. http://www.socialenterprisewm.org.uk/interactive-hub/.

Material on building relationships, working with or simply communicating with funders, produced by all six National Hubs of expertise, has been pulled together into one reference list.

http://www.hubs.org.uk/page.asp?id=76.

Volunteering England has new publications available to download, based on research undertaken by the Institute for Volunteering Research with VAMU and Media Trust.

‘An Introduction to the Media’ (2.85MB pdf) and ‘An Introduction to Marketing’ (2.87MB pdf) can be found via http://www.volunteering.org.uk/Resources/publications/

Results from the Annual Voluntary Sector Salary survey for 2007 have been made available on the Workforce Hub’s web site. The summary provides information on salary levels, fringe benefits and other employment issues.

In pdf format, 97kb.

The Fire Protection Agency is putting on a series of workshops in Scotland which give an overview of the new Fire Safety laws and 5 steps to fire safety risk assessment.

The half day workshops aim to give practical experience of carrying out a short fire safety risk assessment. Contact details and more on fire safety on Skye and Lochalsh Community Toolkit.

Covering all aspects of managing information and communications technology, this guide from the ICT Hub is aimed to be useful anyone whatever their level of technical knowledge.

‘Guide to Managing ICT in the Voluntary and Community Sector’ (dated August 07 but recently mentioned in their newsletter) can be downloaded in pdf format, 1.55MB, at http://www.icthub.org.uk/publications/managing_ict_guide.pdf.

Wellcome Collection Conference Centre, London. From EIRIS/UKSIF Charity Project with Charity Trustee Networks.

A free seminar exploring the opportunities and challenges of incorporating social, environmental and ethical issues into your charity’s investments. This event will cover the ethical, financial and legal issues and will help staff and trustees understand how to go about implementing ethical or socially responsible investment.  This event will combine expert presentations, interactive sessions and an opportunity to learn from other charities.

For more information or to register for this free event please contact sam.collin@eiris.org, call 020 7840 5738 or visit www.charitysri.org

The first ever national survey of amateur arts groups in England will launch on 1st February, and groups from all artistic areas, from music, dance and crafts, to theatre, visual arts and literature, are encouraged to participate.

Run by Department for Culture, Media and Sports for all of February at http://www.artsurvey.org.uk.

The 2008 round of awards from the Sheila McKechnie Foundation, which will help emerging and grassroots campaigners improve their skills, is now open.

They will make 12 awards “across key fields of social action”, with the package of support tailored to the individual, comprising an initial assessment, one-to-one coaching and mentoring sessions, development workshops and shadowing opportunities.

Applications by 14th March, http://www.sheilamckechnie.org.uk/showSub.php?id=87&page=3.

New research concludes that businesses should offer paid leave and a greater choice of activities if they are to successfully engage staff in community projects.

The study from Institute for Volunteering Research and the National Centre for Social Research is based on the 2007 Helping Out national survey. Volunteering England news item.