Dave Butterworth, OCVA’s Community  Ambassador for Abingdon, recently commissioned research that showed that there were more than 200 community and voluntary organisations in Abingdon.


He decided to try to bring these together to share experiences, with a view to them developing joint initiatives.
The first such meeting was in November 2014 at 35 Ock Street and this was attended by more than 20 groups. 


The emphasis was on networking with people talking together in small groups.


People were encouraged to move from group to group in order to make as many contacts as possible. 
In the roundup session at the end of the meeting, it was agreed that the meeting was valuable and that they should hold more meetings every few months, with future meetings having different themes.
Following the meeting, two groups, ACCESS and Stonehill Garden, that had met for the first time, arranged a joint public meeting for one group to launch as a charity and for the other to explore ideas on forming a charity.


The second meeting was held in March 2015 at a venue offered by Preston Road Community Association who attended the first meeting.


Again, this meeting had a strong networking element and the theme of “Help For Free”.
The meeting started with three short presentations from those who offer free help and services to charitable groups.  These were Charity Mentors, The (Oxford University) Student Consultancy, the ROBIN business network and Choose Abingdon.


A date has already been set for the third meeting in June 2015 hosted by Opera for All, and a tentative offer has already been made to host the meeting after that.


To be contacted about future networking events for charities and community groups from the Abingdon area, send your details to dave.vol@ocva.org.uk