REDP Core Reference Group

It's the regular bimonthly meeting of the Core Reference Group of the Regional and Equality Diversity Partnership (REDP). We're meeting at Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCIL) this afternoon - and as well as our hosts (representing disabled people), the meeting includes representatives of organisations working in the protected characteristics of faith or belief, older people, race and sexual orientation. There's a smaller torunout today than we've been used to at previous meetings; many of our regular attendees are caught up in tortuous negotiations with funders at the moment.

The following items are on our agenda this afternoon:

cuts in funding and support for equality-focused groups in East Midlands

our collective response to the Coalition's consultation on reforming the Equlaity and Human Rights Commission

our response to the Coalition's Red Tape Challenge to the Equality Act 2010

planning our conference: "Equality Act 2010 and its Duties" in Nottingham, 30 June

our current and future relations with English Regions Equalities Network

At the end of this month, REDP comes to the end of the second year of our initial three-year funding. We've been talking for several months now about how to make the partnership sustainable and a number of irons are in the fire. it struck me today, while discussing our plans for the next 12 months that our project could be described in the format of a three-act summer action-adventure movie (with each act akin to a year of our funding):

Act 1: You're given your mission

Act 2: Assemble and train your team for the mission

Act 3: Carry out your mission

Doesn't sound like much of a movie, perhaps, but I'm sure the bare bones are recognisable. In Act 3, REDP has to make its big impact. Our name has to be seen all over the place - and has to be associated with strong, positive outcomes. I've been put in charge of REDP's social media and am looking forward to using that to advance our cause.

Rosemarie Fitton is shadowing me this afternoon, as she comes to the end of her placement with Leicester Council of Faiths as part of her MA studies in Interreligious Relations at St Philip's Centre for Study and Engagement in a Multi-Faith Society.

Find out more about REDP: www.redp.org.uk

EREN STRATEGIC PLANNING MEETING

To London this morning, for a meeting of the English Regions Equality Network (EREN). I'm travelling with Dee Martin (Chief Exec of Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living and first/past Chair of the Regional Equality and Partnership). Dee is currently Co-Chair of EREN.

The meeting is being held at Age UK on Pentonville Road. I'm last to enter the meeting room and make a slightly more memorable entrance than I'd like by forcefully and noisily pulling on a door clearly marked "push".

There are 14 of us here in all. from pan-equalities groups working in different regions: London, East Midlands, West Midlands, North East, North West, South West. Each of us has our own particular area of interest within equalities work. We also have representation from the Equality and Diversity Forum.

The session is facilitated by Ange Jones, from the National Equalities Partnership. She begins by setting us an interesting icebreaker activity, in which we speak with the person sitting next to us, and say what we're like when we're at our best. After ten minutes we have a list of qualities, including the following: action-based; balanced; challenging; charming; creative; debonair; enthusiastic; facilitative; focused; giving constructive criticism; having a vision of the future; honest; hopeful; inclusive; laughing a lot; listening to others; non-judgmental; pragmatic; respectful; seeing links others don't; sensitive. These are the qualities we're asked to draw on throughout the day in our interactions here. (We do, of course, spend the same amount of time talking to the person next to us about we're like when we're at our worst, come up with a list of those qualities and are asked to steer clear of that way of doing things in this meeting.)

Paul Dunn (Co-Chair of EREN and CEO of Equality South West) gave an introduction to the short but fruitful history of EREN and positioned it within the current social, political and economic landscape - what some might describe as "flux", while others might call it "slash and burn". He set the task of the day as our need to discuss how we might sustain the network, how we might move on. The Government Equalities Office (GEO) has funded EREN for the next 12 months, though it is unclear precisely what it wants EREN to do in that time. GEO's own agenda for the regions is not clear. All we can say at present is that funding EREN for a year appears to be their regional agenda (if that sounds a bit circular or confusing, then I have conveyed it accurately). There's a sense of urgency about the meeting. Is it useful to look at what EREN has done in the past, how it has done it? Or should we think of the present as Year Zero, since things around us have changed so much, so quickly?

We start our work proper with the question, "What do we need EREN to be now - and for the future?" After brainstorming some key words for a few minutes, we divide into three groups and spend a quarter of an hour juggling some of those words to come up with a sentence that says what EREN is all about. Our gang of four experiments with diagrams and flow charts before coming up with "The vehicle between policy and practice within and across the regions". Another group has "Promoting equality voices nationally". The third group doesn't come up with one of their own. After lunch we try to blend those two sentences into one - but we don't quite manage it.

In our small groups again, we undertake a SWOT analysis of EREN. For the uninitiated, SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. Our group is asked to consider opportunities and threats. We come up with a whole lot more of the former than the latter. I can't believe that we're being naive about this or hiding our heads in the sand, but among the challenges that lie ahead, some of us can see a real chance to help set the agenda and push for real progress in the equalities field. Some people and organisations might be able to do no more than lay down and die; others might be deliberately killed off. But some are going to survive - not just that, but thrive. We need to learn to speak a new language, work with the new conditions, rather than against them, to go with the flow rather than try and turn back the tide.

English Regions Equality Network

At Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre, Stamford Street, London SE1 for the inaugural national meeting of the English Regions Equalities Network (EREN). The theme of the day is "Delivering Equalities in the English Region". Dee Martin, Chief Exec of Leicestershire Centre for Integrated Living (LCIL) and Chair of the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership (REDP), is Co-Chair of EREN. She, Laura Horton (Project Manager of REDP) and I travel down from Leicester together by train, carrying our display material and give-aways. Laura and I are presenting a workshop together after lunch on the creation of our regional partnership.

When it comes to our turn, we are delivering to a group of about fifteen (a decent enough number, considering there are other workshops going on at the same time). We're out front, at the speakers' table, being introeduced by the fellow chairing the session and I'm about to step up to the podium and start. Laura and I have gone over the slide presentation, to try and share out the speaking duties fairly equally. I'm doing the first few slides, then Laura for one, then me again, then Laura does the last few. Just as I step forward to the mike, Laura catches my eye, holds up the printout of the presentation and mouths something like, "I've changed it". I don't know what she's trying to say, and can't see what changes she might have made.

I open up with acknowledging Leicester's reputation as a city rich in diversity, with great culutral variety. It has the largest celebration of Divali outside India; it's Caribbean Carnival is the biggest after the Notting Hill Carnival; right now, the city is celebrating Holi. But I tell attendees that my favourite cultural event in Leicester's calendar is its Comedy Festival, which has only just been and gone. In tribute to that festival, I invite our audience to think of Laura and me as an unexpected and under-rehearsed double act: Morecambe and Hardy, perhaps; or Laurel and Mortimer. I'm playing for time here, hoping that Laura will give me more signals so I can know what I'm supposed to be doing. But she probably thinks she's made herself clear enough and looks on serenely.

What I believe Laura has intimated to me is that instead of us alternating which slides we talk to, we'll do half of the whole set each - me first, then her. So I get to round about halfway and then say, "And now my colleague, Laura Horton, will take you to the end of this presentation." Laura gives me a look that says, "Wha'?" and her first words are, "I'm sorry, but George is a little bit misguided there". Well, if ever words sounded like they'd fit on my headstone ... I'm going to put Laura in charge of my epitaph.

In terms of our telepathy, we're not quite on the same wavelength for this presentation. We both agree that it's not the best we've ever done, but then again, it's the first time we've presented one jointly like this. And you know what? It didn't really matter. As professionals, we always can beat ourselves up about how we've done, after the presentation's finished. But it's self-defeating to be a perfectionist. We did our spot with humility, humanity and a sense of humour (all of which can be in short supply at this kind of event), and it was injected with verve, vivacity and vitality! More power to us ...

Find out more about the English Regions Equality Network (EREN):
http://www.eren.org.uk/

REDP, EDP monthly meetings

At the LGBT Centre, Wellington Street, for the regular meeting of the Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership (REDP), followed by the Equality and Diversity Partnership (EDP) which meets after lunch. These meetings are held on the first Tuesday of every month, usually at the Leicestershire Centre for Integraterd Living (LCIL). This is the first meeting I've attended which we've held at another venue. I'd not been beyond the reception area on the ground floor of the LGBT Centre before today. I must say, I'm rather envious of the layout, the facilities and the open, airy space. But when I tell Ian this, he responds by saying tha the whole place is about to be gutted, redecorated and kitted out with new fixtures and fittings. I wouldn't mind some of their old stuff!

Oh and if you don't know the difference between REDP and EDP, then read on - all (well, some) will be revealed ...

Things don't get off to the greatest of starts for me this morning, when I fail to get to the Centre in time for the start of the meeting. I've been suffering under a heavy cold for the past few days and it was at its worst last night and I didn't get to bed until very late, which led to me oversleeping this morning. I arrived in time to join in a debriefing on the three REDP Involvement Events that we've held in Nottingham, Oakham and Leasingham. I'm still impressed by how constructive, positive and supportive our little group is. More than two years I've been involved in this partnership and in that time I've never witnessed an argument or heard a harsh word used by any member against another. We still have five of these Involvement Events to go, in Loughborough (Tue 9 Feb), Retford (Thu 11 Feb), Derby (Tue 16 Feb), Northampton (Thu 25 Feb) and Leiceester (Thu 4 Mar). On the back of what's happened in this project so far, we've been asked to make presentations to a regional event at an as yet undecided date in March and to a national event for the English Regions Equalities Network (EREN) in London on 3 March. This last one will be done by Laura Horton (Project Manager for REDP), Ian Robson (Director of the LGBT Centre) and me.

In the afternoon, we have a meeting of the Equality and Diversity Partnership, at which we welcome representatives of Age Concern, Leicester City Council, Leicester City NHS and Leicestershire Constabulary. We receive a strong and useful presentation on the city's domestic violence strategy - an issue that cuts across all the equality strands and on which we can all collaborate.

So, what's the distinction between EDP and REDP? Basically, the Equality and Diversity Partnership is the vehicle by which we offer our services in/to the city. The Regional Equality and Diversity Partnership is the vehicle by which we do the same for the whole of the East Midlands. That should be good enough to be getting on with.

Find out more about the Leicester LGBT Centre:
http://www.llgbc.com/