Our society Black Country CVSs event 8 july 2011

Who are we?

Supported by

@juliandobson

@johnpopham

@sospot

@dosticen@davidwilcox

@LadyLowe

@watfordgap

@philralph

How did we start?• Day 1: 1 blog post• Day 2: 4 people in a café• Day 4: Online forum launched• Day 12: 100 people attend event

…all for free

From north focus to Our Society

• Started as Big Society in the North• Interest from Dudley, the South West

and other areas• Gap in the market? Big Society

Network is not a network…• Wanted to step away from and

challenge the Big Society label

Is Big Society a “dead parrot”?

I’m not an ex parrot!

Successes• The online community: 542 members• 20,000 web visits (70,000 views)• Press interest from Channel 4, BBC

Newsnight, BBC Radio, Guardian, Third Sector, Civil Society, and more

• 5 events, 250 people

Our Society in Dudley Borough

• LSP sign up• Our Society

Steering Group• Our Society

Planning Group• In job descriptions

and work plans

Limited resources• Spend to date: approx £129 online

costs, travel, CDX support• Freebies: Venues & food, eventbrite,

logo/brand, goodwill…

Challenge: Identity v. ownership

• We are not an organisation• Individual opinion• Clear mission statement• Links to local networks• Save the baby!

@dosticenlorna@dudleycvs.org.uk01384 265363

Join Our Society: www.oursociety.org.uk

Get CDX updates: bit.ly/CDXSignup