ALLIANCE Membership review of 2017

Our Membership team review activities over 2017 for our annual report.

2017 has been a very successful year for ALLIANCE membership. We would like to take this opportunity to thank our 2,200 members for their continued support and contributions over the last year. Our first new standard member of the 2017 was Fibro Friends United Scotland with our final member of the year is Lingo Flamingo, which demonstrate the wide variety of organisations we represent. We also welcomed a large number of individual supporters over the year – many with lived experience of disabilities and/or long term conditions.

We have introduced new and exciting opportunities for our members to engage with ALLIANCE programmes and network with one another – through our new membership bulletin and through the successful reintroduction of our networking events.

The new membership bulletin, issued quarterly, focuses on the topics promoted via our networking events and spotlights the work of our members. One issue highlighted the work of No Strings Attached, an ALLIANCE Member and Self Management funded project which helps young carers with asthma to self manage their long term condition. The spotlight section of the bulletin also allows members to describe the benefits they’ve experienced from joining the ALLIANCE.

The networking events provide members with the opportunity to network with each other, while also learning more about the different programmes within the ALLIANCE and how they could engage with these. The events further offer practical training in a variety of subjects including volunteering, funding, GDPR and developing social media strategies – welcoming guest speakers from Diabetes UK, Volunteer Scotland, Information Law Solutions, and Third Sector Lab. The events are also useful to the speakers who attend, with Ross McCulloch of the Third Sector Lab telling us he “loved speaking at the social media strategy session at The ALLIANCE – it was great to speak to so many varied organisations working to support people and campaign.”

The events have been hugely successful with very positive feedback from members.

One organisational member who attended the funding event said – “as a small charity we have never applied to [Big Lottery] but after having the opportunity of hearing about the fund, first-hand, and how they work with organisations it did not seem such a daunting task to apply for funding from them.”

We have also been out and about promoting our work at various events including our own Annual Conference on 30 May 2017, and also at Napier University in Edinburgh where, in partnership with our DCV team, to deliver 2 Make a Difference sessions where we engaged with over 400 first-year nursing students.

The ALLIANCE’s strength is in our membership and we look forward to working with you in 2018 and beyond.

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