Category: News

Tees Valley Volunteering Charter launched as Volunteers’ Week 2022 comes to a close

Posted on by Julie
Tees Valley Volunteering Charter launched

Volunteers across Tees Valley can be assured that they will have a great experience, as a new Volunteering Charter is launched.

Tens of thousands of people take on voluntary roles across Tees Valley every year, making a huge contribution to the welfare of their communities, whilst having an enjoyable and rewarding time. The Tees Valley Volunteering Charter can be adopted by organisations which deploy volunteers, and demonstrates their commitment to ensuring that volunteers are safe, valued, and that they undertake meaningful tasks which make a real difference to their communities.

The Charter has been developed  by the Tees Valley Infrastructure Partnership (TVIP), a group of voluntary sector bodies which provide advice, support and a voice for the thousands of voluntary community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations in the region.

Jon Carling, Chief Executive of Catalyst, which supports the VCSE sector in Stockton-on-Tees, said ‘The aim of the Charter is to enable our partner organisations to demonstrate to volunteers that they will have a safe, enjoyable and rewarding experience’.

Mark Davis, Chief Executive of Middlesbrough Voluntary Development Agency, added ‘volunteers tell us all the time how much they enjoy volunteering. They make such a difference to the lives of local people, and add a lot of value to the economy too. Organisations which sign up to the Charter will be showing a real commitment to supporting our volunteers’.

Developed by the Tees Valley Infrastructure Partnership (TVIP) the Charter gives volunteers across the Tees Valley assurance that their volunteering experience will be as positive and worthwhile as possible.

The Charter does not provide set criteria for how organisations ensure the quality of their volunteering offer, but provides a list of statements, which they pledge to work towards in their volunteering practice.

This gives volunteers the confidence that they are valued and supported but allows organisations the flexibility to apply the Charter statements in a way that suits them.

Organisations will be invited to sign up to the Charter from 1st July 2022, and will receive a Charter pack, including a suite of suggested examples to help develop, embed, and uphold good practice.

For the Darlington area to sign up to the Charter or for any further information please contact TVRA’s Business Development Manager, Julie Thornton at info@teesvalleyruralaction.co.uk or 01642213852.

For other areas please contact:-

Hartlepool – Hartlepower -Tracy.Harvey@hartlepool.gov.uk

Middlesbrough – MVDA – Lesley.spaven@mvdauk.org.uk

Redcar & Cleveland – RCVDA – carole.marshall@rcvda.org.uk

Stockton – Catalyst – lucy.owens@catalyststockton.org

Announcing East Cleveland’s Big Jubilee Festival

Posted on by Julie

East Cleveland Big Jubilee Festival 2nd-5th June 2022 brings together rural communities and heritage, linking people in celebrating the Jubilee with a series of multi-generational living history-themed events and activities. The festival has been created by a community partnership led by Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum and involves:

Thanks to Arts Council England Let’s Create Jubilee Fund, County Durham Community Foundation, East Cleveland Big Local and the Big Lottery Fund for supporting the East Cleveland Big Jubilee Festival. In-kind support is provided by a range of local business and supporters. The festival builds on residents’ interest in local history, heritage, passion and community pride. Activities around East Cleveland’s villages will include making oral history recordings of local residents’ memories, exhibitions, schools’ activities, face-to-face and online dance workshops, a ‘ration book style’ record of the festival and costume making. Artists will lead sessions working with volunteers, a film including drone footage will be created and shared online, and audio and visual records will be stored for posterity and made available to the public through the internet. “Our partnership is overjoyed to have been awarded this funding which will allow our village communities to work together in a wide range of creative ways to engage residents in honour the Jubilee. On our journey out of the Covid pandemic, the festival brings opportunities for people to work together to achieve a goal by: being involved in their communities; making positive connections; building feelings of togetherness and belonging; and increasing intergenerational understanding. We can’t wait for the culmination of the festival in the form of our final spectacular dance performance on Skinningrove Jetty on the afternoon of Saturday 4th June. We’re very much looking forward to sharing our final video to celebrate the richness of our communities, their history, culture and natural landscape.” Jo Booth and Graham Banwell – East Cleveland Big Jubilee Festival Steering Group

For further information, images, branding or to confirm an interview please contact ecjubileefest@gmail.com or call Jo Booth on 07941 631486 #CreativeJubilee #LottoGoodCauses

We will provide this space for useful resources to access and download.

EC BIG Jubilee Festival Header

EC BIG Jubilee Crown

EC Big Jubilee Flag

EC Big Jubilee Bunting

Platinum Jubilee Tool Kit includes lots of colouring in sheets, download recipes and even bunting well worth checking out.

 

 

Beat the Street across the Rural Areas of Redcar and Cleveland & Stockton

Posted on by Julie

Tees Valley Rural Action are super pleased to see the Beat the Street challenge hit the rural areas of Tees Valley

What is Beat the Street?

Beat the Street is a free, FUN, interactive challenge that encourages people of all ages to incorporate more activity into their daily lives by turning the town into a six-week game.

The game is completely contactless, players take part in their family groups and are encouraged to walk, cycle, run, wheel or scoot as far as possible within the local area, with prizes for the teams that clock up the highest number of miles.

Beat the Street physical activity game is live in Redcar and Cleveland & Stockton-On Tees

A free, interactive game that encourages whole communities to walk, cycle and roll in return for prizes is set to launch in Redcar and Cleveland!

The Beat the Street game was created by GP Dr William Bird to encourage people to connect with their local communities by getting together to walk, cycle and roll as far as possible within a six-week game.

Beat the Street has been designed to help people make small lifestyle changes and to increase low levels of physical activity. It also helps reduce congestion, improves air quality, and helps friends and families spend time in green spaces together. It is an outdoor game and is completely contactless.

Since it was created, the game has been played by more than 1.5m people in more than 120 locations in the UK and beyond, including in Middlesbrough at the end of 2021 – here, 14,528 people took part and clocked up a total of 110,724 active travel miles.

The game is set to take place across Redcar and Cleveland from Wednesday, 2nd March to Wednesday, 13th April, and a separate game will also run at the same time across Stockton-on- Tees.

It is open to anyone of any age who would like to take part. Players can join a school, workplace, community or charity team and there are prizes for the teams that travel the furthest. There is also an average points leaderboard to ensure that teams of all sizes are in with a chance of winning prizes, plus ‘lucky tap’ prizes and other competitions throughout the game.

The teams that travel the furthest can win hundreds of pounds worth of prizes including vouchers for books or sports equipment.

Participating primary schools will provide each child with a card and map, plus a card for an accompanying adult. The wider community can pick up a free card from one of the distribution points listed on the Beat the Street Redcar and Cleveland and Beat the Street Stockton websites.

Players then find their nearest “Beat Box” which will appear on lampposts around the towns shortly before the game. The Game starts on the 2nd March, hover your card over the Beat Box and it will beep and flash to record your points. Then, walk, cycle or roll to the next nearest Beat Box to score points – then keep going!

Beat the Street is run by Redcar and Cleveland Council, Stockton Borough Council funded by Sport England, and managed by Intelligent Health.

Set Up

Children aged 11 and under play with a Beat the Street card, which they will receive directly from their school. Anyone aged 12 and above plays with a Beat the Street card that can be collected from a local distribution point.

All players over the age of 13 can create an account online, but anyone under 13 will need a parent or carer to do this for them. Parents/carers can then add additional family members to their account via our family management feature.

Once an account has been set up, players can connect their card to their player profile. When you’re ready to start, use the Beat Box map to plan your route and get going!

Playing the game

  1. Explore your local area, finding Beat Boxes nearest to you on the map.
  2. Hover your card at the contactless Beat Box until it beeps and flashes.
  3. Visit two Beat Boxes within an hour and collect 10 points for each Beat Box – this is 20 points for the journey.
  4. Carry on your journey and score 10 points for each extra Beat Box you visit.

Go Week

Each of the six weeks of the Game has a different theme. Each week focuses on different aspects, including Go Travel, Go Wild, Go Active and go Explore. Each week brings new opportunity to get involved with your local community, earn points and have fun!

Go Play 2nd – 8th March – Players are introduced to Beat the Street and the key concepts behind the game. Players are encouraged to find Beat Boxes in their neighbourhood and get friends and family to play.

Go Travel 9th – 15th March – This week aims to promote active travel with bonus points and prizes centred around commuting times of the day.

Go Wild 16th – 22nd March – Go Wild celebrates all of the town’s parks, green spaces and waterways.

Go Active 23rd – 29th March – Having got active through Beat the Street, players will be encouraged to try out sports and fitness activities (COVID-19 restrictions permitting)

Go Explore 30th March – 5th April – Players are encouraged to find Beat Boxes across the area on foot or by bike and access cultural and historical hubs. We will run a number of events encouraging people to discover new places.

Go Celebrate 6th – 13th April – In the final week we will be celebrating the game with double points on all Beat Boxes in the final week.

For Maps and Distribution points for your areas please go to
Redcar and Cleveland

www.beatthestreet.me/redcarcleveland
Twitter: @BTSRCBC
Facebook: @BTSRedcarCleveland
Instagram: @btsredcarcleveland

BTS Redcar Cleveland Leaflet

Stockton

www.beatthestreet.me/stockton
Twitter: @BTSStockton
Facebook: @BTSStockton
Instagram: @btsstockton

 

Tees Valley Rural Action – Mapping Employment Related Provision across the Voluntary and Community Sector in Darlington

Posted on by Julie

Tees Valley Rural Action – For Darlington, alongside the 4 other Tees Valley Voluntary Development Agencies, have been commissioned by the Learning & Work Institute & Tees Valley Combined Authority to collate “an accurate picture of how the voluntary & community sector provides employment-related support, including IAG and mentoring/coaching services”.

The New Futures initiative is part of a national pilot – funding having been obtained by the Learning & Work Institute from the Covid-19 Support Fund for work in 5 areas across the UK, including Tees Valley,. The idea is to develop & deliver pilot programmes to support workers to re-skill following the pandemic. The pilot will run from Spring 2022 to September 2023.

To be eligible for the programme people will have had their employment impacted by the pandemic. The target cohort for the pilot will be Tees Valley residents over the age of 35 who have been unemployed for 0-24 months – including those who have been on furlough – and/or those who have changed sector/occupation due to the impact of Covid-19 but are wanting to change career to a more sustainable occupation in areas of growth within Tees Valley.

The information is being collected with a view to VCS organisations potentially being commissioned by the Learning & Work Institute to deliver components of the New Futures programme. According to the Institute:

“Each pilot will include:

  • Tailored and targeted outreach activity
  • High quality careers advice and coaching based on local labour market information, future skills needs and local skills profiles.
  • Local sector-based partnerships to identify and/or develop training for specific career pathways and jobs.
  • Flexible models of training delivery including intensive short courses delivered face-to-face and/or online – to fit with adults’ wider work and family commitments.
  • Financial support for career changers to ensure affordability and reduce cost barriers to re-skilling.”

NB One of the key differences between this and other employment-related programmes is recognition that some people whose employment was impacted by the pandemic may have now obtained alternative employment but may still wish to re-skill and move into a different role.  All provision therefore will need to be flexible to suit both employed and unemployed participants.”

If you are interested in being included on the spreadsheet we’re compiling for the Learning & Work Institute then please advise info@teesvalleyruralaction.co.uk.

We estimate that the time necessary to gather the required information will be around 15 minutes.

Logo

 

Village Halls Week 2022: Innovating for the future

Posted on by Julie

Monday 24 January – Sunday 30th January 2022

Village Halls Week is a national campaign, shining a spotlight on the contribution England’s 10,000+ village halls make to rural communities. It is an opportunity for hall management committees to celebrate their work and get inspiration from others.

ACRE – Action with Communities in Rural England fifth annual campaign will challenge halls to do something different and innovate for the future.

Halls do much to improve life for local residents, often providing the only local space where people gather, combating loneliness, and delivering a wide range of activities and services.

But in these precarious times, community buildings can play a leading role in shaping a better future. During the week, we will be encouraging halls to pledge to do something different – whether that be extending their offer to their community, reducing their impact on the environment or becoming more financially sustainable.

To find out how you can get involved and support the campaign, please click on the following links and all your resources and downloads are here:

How to get involved in Village Halls Week 2022

Campaign Pack – Download

This event is kindly sponsored by

Zurich, Norris & Fisher, Ansvar

Programme

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Merry Christmas From Tees Valley Rural Action

Posted on by Julie

Wishing you a wonderful Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

For the last 18 months or so we have all been living and operating in circumstances which, to say the least, have been extremely challenging.  Sadly as we head into the festive season and spending time with our family and loved ones we are still very much uncertain as to what further challenges we will have to contend with in the New Year.

Throughout this time we have worked with a lot of communities and we are humbled by what resilience really means in the rural communities of the Tees Valley.  We could never be more proud of how our rural communities have stepped up to reach out to others when times are difficult.

We’d like to thank all of the volunteers who have come forward in these challenging times who have provided their time free of charge to support, look after their neighbours and those who are alone.  We salute each and everyone of you and thank you.

In the words of a familiar saying, “we’re not out of the woods yet” and Covid is here for longer than anyone would want it to be.  It will continue to be tough for volunteers in working to keep their community venues open and running so that communities can still benefit from much needed social activities at this special time of year.  Despite these difficulties and because our rural communities are resilient, we know that they will keep on going and giving whenever and wherever they possibly can.

The pandemic has been a long haul for everyone involved, but sympathy, support and solidarity between volunteers, our small team here at TVRA and the organisations to which we’re all connected to has been given in abundance.  Thank you just doesn’t seem to be enough!

Our busy team at TVRA will be closing our ‘virtual’ offices from Friday 17th December and will reopen on 10th January 2022 refreshed and ready to begin another busy year.

Wishing you all a Happy Christmas.  Do stay safe and here’s to looking forward to a much better year in 2022 where we can build on all the brilliant work which volunteers and communities have done through these unprecedented and challenging times.

SEARCH IS ON FOR SOCIALLY ENTERPRISING BUSINESS IDEAS AS £4M INVESTMENT POT GOES LIVE FOR REDCAR & CLEVELAND AND HARTLEPOOL

Posted on by Julie

SEARCH IS ON FOR SOCIALLY ENTERPRISING BUSINESS IDEAS AS £4M INVESTMENT POT GOES LIVE FOR REDCAR & CLEVELAND AND HARTLEPOOL

A new £4m programme aimed at reducing poverty and inequality through the growth of social economies has launched with a call-out to social entrepreneurs and organisations to get in touch with their business ideas. 

LARCH, which stands for Local Access Redcar & Cleveland and Hartlepool, is part of a £33m enterprise development and blended social investment programme being jointly funded across the UK by Big Society Capital and Access – The Foundation for Social Investment.

It’s one of six areas to be chosen to receive a mix of support, grant funding and repayable investment to grow its local social enterprise and voluntary and community sector as part of efforts to increase prosperity, boost the local economy and ultimately, reduce inequality.

Local partners are now calling for anyone with a socially enterprising business idea – or an existing organisation that has potential to do more – within these two areas to register with LARCH to see how the funding and support can help.

Carol Botten, who is CEO of Voluntary Organisations Network North East (VONNE) and the independent chair of the LARCH Partnership Board, said the opportunity is unique because it’s designed to shift the social sector culture to one of self-sustainability: “The LARCH programme will support individuals and organisations at different stages of their enterprise journey, to develop ideas and business models through events, workshops, professional support and mentoring from other successful social entrepreneurs and organisations.

“In addition, organisations will be able to access small enterprise development grants and repayable finance to help them realise their idea or sustain or grow their existing earned income streams.”

“The programme will support organisations to become more enterprising, diversify and grow their income sources and in doing so enable them to deliver more impact for local people and communities in Redcar & Cleveland and Hartlepool.  With the funding landscape growing ever more competitive, enabling organisations to be self-sustaining and resilient through earned income and the delivery of contracts and services, is key to building a diverse, vibrant and resilient community and social enterprise sector.”

A social enterprise is a business established to create positive social change – it must have a focus on economic success; however, it differs from other businesses in that the money generated is used to tackle its social aims rather than to reward the business owners or shareholders.

Peter Gowland, who is a director of Hartlepower and is one of the voluntary sector organisations helping represent LARCH in Hartlepool, said “We urge anyone with a social enterprise idea to take up the LARCH offer, which is not just about providing funding for your project – welcome though that is – but good quality, continuing support throughout your enterprise journey. Hartlepool has a very rich tradition of people coming together to meet local needs -LARCH could be just the tool people need to realise their ambitions.”

Peter Gowland - supporting partner on LARCH at Church St Hartlepool
Peter Gowland – supporting partner on LARCH at Church St Hartlepool

Mike Milen, who is CEO of Redcar & Cleveland Voluntary Development Agency (RCVDA) is representing LARCH for Redcar and Cleveland, said: “Although we see a lot of positive economic news linked to Tees Works and the Redcar and Loftus Town Plans, this still remains a challenging time for many. We intend for LARCH to encourage and support the development of a complimentary social enterprise approach to regenerating Redcar & Cleveland.

Mike Milen -Supporting partner on LARCH at Redcar
Mike Milen -Supporting partner on LARCH at Redcar

“I would encourage anyone with ideas and a passion for the area to make contact. This is an opportunity for local people to lead on the development of services and products that can create employment and improve the local area.”

Ideas from organisations that qualify will be driven by social aims or goals, derive at least part of the income from trading, rather than from grant funding or donations, and will reinvest profits in the enterprise and its social aims.

Most often, social enterprises are set up to operate by directly addressing the social issue they aim to improve, for example a specialist cardiac rehabilitation service set up in response to the barriers faced by the local community in accessing the available NHS services.

However, they can also be profitable businesses which raise money to be used to tackle social issues, for example an accommodation letting agency purely to generate funds for a local charity.

Ms Botton said: “This is an opportunity to register at the earliest possible stages of LARCH; The process of recruiting a programme manager is currently in progress and we hope to announce that early in the New Year, followed by the launch of the LARCH website and development of the brand, to make it as accessible as possible to people.”

Interest is expected to be high – follow the link to register

https://form.jotform.com/LARCHorg/registerwithlarch

East Cleveland Villages – We need to find some good listeners, is this you?

Posted on by Julie

Lloyds Bank Foundation is  involved in long-term People and Communities work in Redcar and Cleveland (and five other communities across England and Wales). The Great Listeners approach in Redcar and Cleveland will be an essential part of the work, enabling residents to take the lead in researching local needs and views.

Supported by an independent community worker, Nick Beddow (Shared Places), the Great Listeners will be creating  a community-led research approach in Redcar and Cleveland, to find out what 600 local residents feel strongly about in their neighbourhoods: what do they currently like and wish to see continue? What do they dislike and want to see change? And what are their own ideas for making life better for all?

What difference will it make?

Consultation has become a dirty word in the past because communities can feel that they are being used by big organisations in a paper-exercise which leads to nothing changing and no further communication about what’s been discovered in the research.

The Great Listeners approach is tackling this head-on:  it is led by communities listening to each other, connecting and and learning about their different views, needs and priorities, and then using these conversations to create a long-term community voice on local issues. The Great Listeners conversations will be gathered into a report which will be available to communities and used at action-planning and decision-making events to guide everyone towards collaborating better on community priorities. The Great Listeners will be bringing together many voices from many backgrounds and perspectives.

These 600 conversations will be a starting point for learning what’s important to communities; we will be listening to people who often aren’t being heard.

In March 2022 the findings will be shared with communities, service providers and funders, to help them consider future actions to meet local people’s needs. We are ‘learning as we go’ and trying to evolve an approach to community engagement which will continue and be built on further. We hope that the learning from the Great Listeners work will inspire new approaches to how we involve communities in helping to shape local services and influence decision-making.

How it will work:

These conversations will be happening in three areas of Redcar & Cleveland: Grangetown, Redcar and neighbourhoods in the East Cleveland area. These sites were chosen because they offer different environments and we want to see if that creates different priorities for people who live there.

The research will be undertaken by ten residents who will be chatting to others in their neighbourhood from January to March 2022. We will be recruiting the residents from the three areas during November and December, and paying them in shopping vouchers for a couple of hours work each week, over three months. This ensures that people who are receiving benefit payments can be involved, as we will be keeping to a maximum of £20 payment each week in the form of vouchers. Anyone over 16 can be considered. The only qualifications required are that they are good listeners and care deeply about their communities.

How Can Residents Apply?

We will be sending our recruitment poster to communities throughout November and early December to invite people to express their interest in becoming our “Great Listeners” or “Community Explorers” (we’ll ask the recruited residents to decide on their own name).

The first step is for interested residents to contact Nick Beddow by phone or text (07985 570168) or email (nicksharedplaces@gmail.com).

Nick will contact each person to explain the project in more detail, and ask about their interests and social background – where they live, age, involvement in their community, etc.

As we have only ten places available, in mid December we will choose ten people who give us a good mix of backgrounds (where they live, and a mix of all social factors such as ages, gender, ethnicity, mobility, etc).

Everyone who applied will be contacted by Nick before Xmas: those chosen for the ten places will be asked if they still wish to go ahead, and everyone else will be asked if they are willing to be kept on a list of reserve places if any of the ten Great Listeners can’t continue.

In mid-January the ten Great Listeners will meet Nick in a local venue to train together as a team; a three hour meeting will look at their views on the issues locally and begin to use the chatting tools on each other. We will be deciding together the best ways to begin the local chats. Each Great Listener can decide when to use their own time each week (usually two hours to complete ten chats each week), and will be paid by Nick fortnightly at update meetings (usually one hour).  They will also be paid for the training and meetings.

Going Green Together Launch

Posted on by Julie
Going Green Together Launch!
The VCAA (VONNE Climate Action Alliance) have launched the Going Green Together campaign!

After 10 intensive weeks working with SIDE Labs and di:ga Communications on Catalyst’s Development programme, the VCAA have developed a web-tool to help organisations take their first climate action steps and share their action with others.

The website also provides more information about the VCAA, learning resources and the opportunity to read their news, subscribe to their newsletter and join their MeetUp group for future events and meetings.

It would be great if you could visit the Going Green Together website and share any feedback by emailing hello@goinggreentogether.org.

Could your community group/building access funding and take some simple steps towards climate change? Redcar & Cleveland

Posted on by Julie

If the answer is yes, or even if you want to think big please read on. Sirius Minerals Foundation has easily accessible funding for your community group or building to make this happen.

Sirius Minerals Foundation Open Grant Round – Climate Change

We are currently accepting applications for climate change action projects.

Sirius Minerals Foundation was established to provide a lasting legacy for the community, and this grant round is designed to address our objective to advance environmental protection and improvement including the enhancing of the local landscape.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

Margaret Mead, American cultural anthropologist

This grant round is specifically designed to enable local communities, schools and voluntary organisations in our area of benefit to undertake action on climate change. We are particularly interested in grassroots projects that galvanise community action and projects that increase the number of people taking action on climate change. This could be something that has been proven to work elsewhere, or it could be an innovative idea that you would like to test in your community. It could be a research or feasibility study to understand how your community buildings or activities could be more environmentally friendly. All we ask is that you tell us why you believe that your project will make a positive contribution to the achievement of our objectives, and what demonstrable outputs you expect.

We can fund projects for climate change awareness raising and education, mitigation of the effects of climate change, adaptation to the consequences of climate change, and feasibility studies. This grant round gives people who have an idea the resources to put it into action. We know not everything will work, but we are keen to support you to give something a go because we all need to take action on climate change. We can all play a part in looking after the world we love.

This grant round will see the Foundation spend up to £80,000 across Scarborough Borough, the North York Moors National Park and Redcar and Cleveland. Organisations can apply for grants of between £500 and £5,000. The grants can be used to buy something or to do something locally that will ultimately have positive climate benefits.

This grant round will close at 12pm on Monday 6th December 2021. Groups will be notified of the outcome by the end of February 2021. Funds must be spent by end of March 2023.

Please read the detailed eligibility criteria and application guidance if you are inspired to take local climate action at this time, available here

Application forms for this round can be found here

If you would like to have a look at the monitoring form that you will be asked to complete at the end of your project please click here. This is for information only at the application stage and should not be sent back with your application form.

Groups are encouraged to contact the Foundation to have an informal chat to discuss their application if they are not sure it fits the criteria for this funding round.

Call Leah Swain on 07724 832982 or email grants@siriusmineralsfoundation.co.uk

If you need support to develop your project idea or write an application then please get in touch with your local support organisations below.

For organisations in Scarborough Borough and the North York Moors National ParkCommunity Support North Yorkshire – Community First Yorkshire

01904 704177 or communitysupport@communityfirstyorkshire.org.uk

For organisations in Redcar and ClevelandSupport – RCVDA01642 440571 or enquiries@rcvda.org.uk