ARE YOU PREPARED FOR PERSONALISATION?

At the King Power Stadium (home of Leicester City FC) today for the latest regional event arranged by the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership (REDP). Leicester Council of Faiths is one of the four Core Partners in REDP. "Are you prepared for Personalisation?" has been designed with three main outcomes in mind:

To identify the risks and opportunities that Personalisation presents 

To demystify the agenda by drawing on expert opinion as well as user experience 

To provide practical information about developing the services and business models to meet the needs of this new emerging open market environment

More than 100 people have registered for this event. Most of them are here on behalf of Voluntary and Community Sector organisations from around the East Midlands; many others are signed in as "independent". More than 50 agencies, groups and organisations are represented here today. Most of the entries on the list below are live links to the relevant website (in the East Midlands, if one is available). A small number don't appear to have any online presence, local, regional or national (I have checked every one of them) - but they're listed all the same.

• Age UK Leicester Shire and Rutland
• Alzheimer's Society
• Aphasia Leicester Group
• Bradnet
• The Bridge
• Business Box
• Centre Project
• CLASP
• Derby and Derbyshire Race and Equality Commission
• Derbyshire Disability Action Network
• Derbyshire LINk
• Direct Payments Service Users Ltd
• Disability Derbyshire
• Disability Direct Nottingham
• The Disability Syndicate
• Diversity Hub
• Douglas Bader Centre
• Emerald Centre
• Enable Housing Association
• Faith in People
• Genesis Links
• Grasmere Residential Home
• Headway
• Leicestershire Aids Support Service
• Leicester Council of Faiths
• Leicester Deaf Action Group
• Leicester LGBT Centre
• Leicester LINk
• Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living
• Leicestershire Employment for Autism Today
• Lincolnshire Association for People with Disabilities
• Links (Chesterfield & North East Derbyshire CVS)
• LOROS (The Leicestershire & Rutland Hospice)
• Melton Mencap & Gateway
• Menphys
• Network for Change
• Northampton Volunteering Centre
• Nottingham Community Housing Association
• Notts Independent Living Consultancy
• Peepul Centre
• Remploy
• Saffcare
• Savera Resource Centre
• Shree Sanatan Centre
• Somali Disability Solution
• Solutions 4 Community Support Ltd
• The Race Equality Centre
• West Indian Senior Citizens Project
• Westminster Homecare Ltd Nottingham
• Worth-It Projects

Representatives of more than 60 agencies, groups and organisations from the Voluntary and Community Sector attended our last big regional event (on the Equality Act 2010 and its Duties, in Nottingham at the end of June).  That makes more than 110 such bodies across both events - and only 12 of them attended both (that includes REDP's four Core Partners, who are contractually obliged to be at these events). Quite a spread, then!

Our main speaker (who carries most of the load in the morning session) is David McKenlay, from the Office for Disability Issues. The highlight of his presentation is the first public opportunity to discuss the Coalition's Disability Strategy.

After lunch, there are four workshops, each lasting 45 minutes. Each one runs twice, so everyone gets the chance to attend two of them.

• "Life without contracts!" (Paul Cohead, Direct Payments Service Users Ltd)
• "What's with this Micro Provider?" (Becky Daykin, Notts Independent Living Consultancy)
• "Partnership's, can it really work?" [sic] (Karen Duke, Derbyshire Disability Action Network)
• "Is it for me?" (Rupert Earl, Vice Chair, Spinal Injuries Association)

This is our first big event since Dee Martin retired as CEO of Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living. She's attending, but enjoying being able to sit on the sidelines, where no one is paying her particular attention or making a special fuss over her - that is, until Iris Lightfoote (current Chair of REDP) calls her to the front to take a bow and say a few words (one of which is "bugger").