ALLIANCE membership review of 2019

ALLIANCE membership team review their activities from 2019.

Not only does the ALLIANCE membership network continue to grow but 2019 saw us reach another milestone of 2,900 members working together to strengthen the voices of people of all ages who are disabled or living with long term conditions and unpaid carers.

In 2019 alone, our growing network welcomed 55 new organisations including; The Meeting Place, War on Epilepsy, Dundee Cancer Support Network, Cyrenians OPAL, Neuro Hebrides, Genomic Health and All Strong Scotland CIC and several Libraries. We also welcomed over 121 new individual members and 143 professional associates.

To meet the needs of this diverse network, we took the initiative to develop our ‘offer’ in consultation with our members in order to better understand what has worked well in the past and what we could do to assist in building capacity across the third sector.

In 2019, we strengthened our events programme to include a range of training and development opportunities and hosted over 30 members networking events. Each event was fully booked and received positive feedback. Comments included:

• “The information provided was excellent. Group work wasn’t uncomfortable and was beneficial”
• “Really informative session – provided good food for though and things to take back to company to explore.”
• “Really excited to take this information back to work and use to help on our training of our new staff and volunteer training; extremely informative – really glad I attended today.”

 Our events over the year have included:

• Funding workshop with The National Lottery Community Fund
• Improving Volunteer Practice with Volunteer Scotland
• Social Media Strategies with the Third Sector Lab
• Scottish Fire and Rescue Service and community safety and partnership working
• General Medical Council and the role of regulators
• SKS Scotland and sustainability
• Mindfulness in the Workplace
• Working in the Community with the Links team
• Engaging Effectively: Clarity, Focus And Power.

We have maintained strong communication with the Involvement Network and offered varied platforms for them to share their story and views, build connections and benefit from peer learning and support. This includes: Humans of Scotland, an event on Social Care, Feminism, and Human Rights, a Multiple Medicines Workshop, a range of activity during Self Management Week, the Third Sector and Quality Improvement focus groups and the Glasgow Caledonian University Research Project: Life After Stroke. We have also offered training on Sustainability for Organisations, Impact and Influencing and Mental Health First Aid. We have also actively sought opinion pieces from our members to ensure they are using our networks to share their story wider.

ALLIANCE Membership provides greater access to numerous benefits ranging from being able to input and influence national policy and peer learning and support to networking and knowledge sharing.

You can become a member by completing the online form. If you have any questions, contact us at membership@alliance-scotland.org.uk

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