Author: ageukcomms

Age UK

Offline And Overlooked: Age UK’s brand new digital exclusion campaign

Find out all about Age UK’s brand new digital exclusion campaign “Offline and Overlooked”, including how your organisation can get involved.

This week, Age UK launched our new campaign to tackle digital exclusion, ‘Offline And Overlooked’. Almost six million people (5,800,000) aged 65+ are either unable to use the internet safely and successfully or aren’t online at all. as essential services, from banking, to healthcare and parking, are moving increasingly online, they risk being cut out and left behind.

Join the campaign!

We would love it if you could help support the campaign and share the petition too. You can:

Printable Petitions Available

We are keen to engage as many people as possible in the campaign and to include those who are offline, so you can also download the petition to print off here. If you would really like to help with the petition and need lots of copies, please email luke.pilot@live.co.uk to request them

Alternatively, supporters can write to FREEPOST Age UK Campaigns to request a printed version of the petition.

Spreading the word on Social Media

Below is some template wording to help you spread the word on social media if you have time.

Twitter:

Almost 6 million people aged 65+ are either unable to use the internet safely and successfully or aren’t online at all. They risk being cut out of essential services.

Sign our petition to bring back offline options to essential services!

https://campaigns.ageuk.org.uk/page/135031/petition/1?ea.tracking.id=LAUK

Facebook:

Almost 6 million people aged 65+ are either unable to use the internet safely and successfully or aren’t online at all. As access to essential public services increasingly moves exclusively online, they risk being cut out of essential services. This isn’t right.

Sign our petition to protect easy to use offline access to essential services.

https://campaigns.ageuk.org.uk/page/135031/petition/1?ea.tracking.id=LAUK

Local influencing

We recently completed our series of discussion groups with Partner colleagues, where we learned about the services you are most frequently seeing older people being digitally excluded from. These groups helpfully informed how we can campaign together as a network to protect offline access for older people locally.

Thanks to your engagement and feedback, we are now able to begin agreeing a local strategy to tackle digital exclusion in public services.

If you have any further insight, queries, or wanted an opportunity to discuss this with us, please get in touch via luke.pilot@ageuk.org.uk.

Help Shape the Upcoming Spread the Warmth Campaign!

We’re launching a charity-wide Winter campaign in January to March 2024 called ‘Spread the Warmth’. We’d love to work with Partners to make this campaign as effective as possible – please get in touch to let us know how we can make sure the campaign works best for your organisation.

This message is to update you on some exciting plans that are in the pipeline for January to March 2024 and to discuss how you might like to get involved.

We’re launching a charity-wide Winter campaign in January to March 2024 called ‘Spread the Warmth’. Some of you may be familiar with ‘Spread the Warmth’ as a campaign from a few years ago and one that Age Cymru have continued to run successfully.

The campaign is all about bringing together all the work we do to support older people this winter – a time that we all know can be especially tough for many older people.

As you know, the Winter Health campaign, led by the Health Influencing team, is now under way, ensuring older people have access to the information, advice, and support that they need to navigate winter. Many of you will already be involved in this vital work and we plan to bring it together with some exciting new plans as well.

We’re hoping that new and existing activity from all parts of the charity early next year can feed into the ‘Spread the Warmth’ campaign to create as much noise and cut-through as possible. Whether we’re encouraging the public to support the Age UK Network by volunteering, donating or campaigning, or whether we’re reaching older people, their friends and families with advice about staying safe this Winter, everyone can help Spread the Warmth.

What’s planned for Spread the Warmth?

We’re still confirming exactly what activity will run as part of the ‘Spread the Warmth’ campaign in 2024, but here’s a flavour of some of the initial ideas in development:

  • We hope to air an advert from the recent brand campaign about the challenges of heating homes. The ad will include a ‘Spread the Warmth’ message at the end and will signpost older people to the Advice Line for support.
  • Age UK shops will help support the campaign with in-store messaging and potentially merchandise to promote the campaign. We will also bring back ‘Donate a Coat’, an idea where we encourage members of the public and celebrities to donate a preloved coat to their local shop to be resold. 
  • Our media outreach will highlight the scale of the challenges facing older people this Winter, share advice for keeping safe and well, and potentially launch a stunt to drum up coverage.
  • Fundraising initiatives planned for January to March 2024 will feature a ‘Spread the Warmth’ message and highlight the challenges faced by older people during Winter.

This isn’t a complete list and ideas are still being developed, but we were keen to let colleagues across the Network know about the campaign as soon as possible so that we can get your input.

How can you get involved now?

As we move towards Our Shared Future, we want to make sure we’re co-creating the campaign together so that we can share ideas and assets that are genuinely helpful, to help amplify the campaign together.

Perhaps you have an idea for how you could help boost the ‘Spread the Warmth’ campaign? Or maybe you have a request for assets that would be helpful for us to supply?

If you’d like to get involved, please contact: sophie.bowler@ageuk.org.uk.

Plans for the next couple of months

We will be in touch with all colleagues again in the next month with more detailed plans for the campaign, plus the new Spread the Warmth design lockup for us all to use. Closer to launch, we also plan to share assets to help amplify the campaign, such as posters or social posts that you could share on your channels.

This year, ‘Spread the Warmth’ is a pilot campaign and one that we’re aiming to get off the ground in a short space of time. We will do everything we can to support all requests, but we may not be able accommodate everything. That said, we’re open to all suggestions to help make the campaign even bigger and better in years to come.

Thank you for reading and supporting the campaign. Together, let’s spread the warmth this winter!

Many thanks,

Sophie Bowler, Senior Brand Marketing Manager, Age UK

Winter Health Campaign Grant Funding – Apply by Friday 6 October

Age UK’s Health Influencing Team runs a small grant scheme to support Partners with local work throughout winter. Find out full details, including how to apply by Friday 6 October.

Following on from last week’s release of the Partner Pack for the 2023/24 Winter Health Campaign, this is a reminder that local Age UKs can apply for grant funding to support your winter work by Friday 6 October

What is the Winter Health Campaign Grant?

For the past two years, the Age UK Health Influencing team has supported partners by running a small grant scheme, aimed at providing funding to support local winter work.

The objective of this grant scheme has been to address cost-of-living and winter challenges through local initiatives that ensure older people stay warm, safe, and well-nourished, making them less likely to experience preventable illness or injury and ultimately reducing the number of hospital admissions/ readmissions and excess winter deaths.

We hope to support more partners by running the scheme for a 3rd year and encourage all local Age UKs to apply via the form below.

Please complete the form below and return it to healthinfluencing@ageuk.org.uk by Friday 6 October 2023. The form may be completed in bullet points.

Click here to download the application form!

We understand that the entire Network is working at maximum capacity at the moment, so please do get in touch if you would like to apply for a grant but are unable to meet the application deadline.

We really appreciate all the work our local Age UKs are doing to help older people this winter and hope these grants will be able to support some of the critical winter work, which will be so important over the next few months.

Do you know anyone that works at EDF? Please help us win a £650k partnership!

Find out how you can help Age UK win a 650K partnership with EDF Energy. If Age UK are selected there will be opportunities for local Age UKs near to EDF sites to access funding and make use of corporate volunteers.

EDF Energy have shortlisted Age UK for their next charity partner – and it’s up to EDF staff to decide who they should partner with! EDF will partner with their next chosen charity for three years and raise approximately £650k. If Age UK are selected, there will be opportunities for local Age UKs near to EDF sites to access funding and make use of corporate volunteers.

The staff voting period is open from Monday 18 September – Friday 20 October.

How you can help:

  • Do you have a relationship already with an EDF site? If so, please drop them a line and ask them vote for Age UK.
  • If you have any friends or family who work at EDF then please do encourage them to vote for Age UK as their charity partner.
  • Please like and share our LinkedIn post to help spread the word.

If you could please also let Orlagh Mannion know that you have done so, that would be brilliant.

Thank you in advance for your help – a partnership with EDF will make a huge difference to older people and the Age UK Network.

Age UK Partner News Roundup – 22/09/23

Take a look at the latest weekly roundup of news from local and national partners.

Welcome to the latest Age UK Partner News Roundup! It’s a job-focussed edition this week with new roles at Age UK Wiltshire; Age UK Redbridge, Barking & Havering; and Age UK Nottingham & Nottinghamshire.

As always, if you have a story from your organisation that you would like us to share with the Network, such as recent events, campaigns, or awards, please let us know at signpost@ageuk.org.uk and we’ll add it to the next roundup.

Lots of new roles at Age UK Wiltshire

Age UK Wiltshire is seeking to recruit for several different roles, including:

  • Falls Prevention Manager
  • Falls Prevention Senior Project Worker
  • Living Well Senior Project Worker
  • Shop Manager
  • Assistant Shop Manager

Find out full details on the Age UK Wiltshire website.

Three new roles at Age UK Redbridge, Barking & Havering

Age UK Redbridge, Barking & Havering are recruiting an On Site Activity Centre Manager. The Manager will look after the day to day running of the centre, to include general administration, rotas, ordering, as well as planning activities and events.

They are also looking for a Co-Ordinator for the management of a service facilitating recruitment and supervision of volunteers to assist with the running of our services across Redbridge and Barking & Dagenham and Havering.

Age UK Redbridge, Barking & Havering are also seeking an Advice and Information Worker to cover the London Borough of Redbridge. This role requires the worker to work independently and manage their own caseload but be part of the wider team and be aware of the other services provided by the organisation.

Find out full details on the Age UK Redbridge, Barking & Havering website.

Two open roles at Age UK Nottingham and Nottinghamshire

Age UK Notts have two new vacancies currently available. The first is for a Support Worker to work within Mental Health Service for Older People (MHSOP) Support Service.

The second vacancy is for an Income Generation Coordinator who will be tasked with building relationships with corporate partners, individuals and communities to generate funding to support the charity’s activities.

Find out full details on the Age UK Notts website.

Two vacancies at Age UK Wigan Borough

Age UK Wigan Borough are seeking an Enquiries Desk Supervisor to provide front line support on the Enquiries Desk, ensuring a prompt, efficient and helpful response.

They are also seeking Home Helpers to support their shopping and cleaning service.

Find out full details on the Age UK Wigan Borough website.

Two new roles at Age UK Salford

Age UK Salford are looking to recruit a highly motivated individual to join their busy Hospital Aftercare team providing support to Salford Citizens 55+ who have been recently discharged from Salford Royal Hospital, back to their own homes. 

They are also seeking an I&A Coordinator to take responsibility for the efficient line management and training of a small team of Information and Advice staff and volunteers.

Find out full details on the Age UK Salford website.

Trustee Vacancy at Age UK Blackburn with Darwen

Are you a strategic thinker with business skills and experience? If so, you can apply to join the Board of Age UK Blackburn with Darwen as a Trustee.

Find out full details on the Age UK Blackburn with Darwen website.

Three positions at Age UK Somerset

Age UK Somerset are recruiting for three positions. They are seeking a Toenail Cutting Assistant as well as a Ageing Well Class Coordinator who can support and develop their Ageing Well activities across Sedgemoor and North Somerset.

They are also seeking a new Treasurer for their Board to oversee the maintenance of proper accounts and books of record for the charity and any subsidiary trading company.

Find out full details on the Age UK Somerset website.

Corporate Services Manager Role at Age UK Bolton

Age UK Bolton are seeking a Corporate Services Manager, to be part of the Senior Leadership Team, leading on governance and ensuring high standards across their services.

Find out full details on the Age UK Bolton website.

Closing date: Tuesday 19 September

Age UK Northamptonshire are recruiting to their Board of Trustees

Age UK Northamptonshire are looking for voluntary Trustees who have a range of skills and experience including leadership and senior management in the commercial sector or health sector or have senior legal or financial professional expertise. The Trustees would serve an initial three-year term.

Find out full details on the Age UK Northamptonshire website.

Three Vacancies at Age UK Calderdale and Kirklees

Age UK Calderdale and Kirklees are seeking a Foot Care Practitioner, a Home Helper, and a Podiatrist.

Find out full details on the Age UK Calderdale and Kirklees website.

Independent Living Support worker role at Age UK Tunbridge Wells

Age UK Tunbridge Wells are currently looking to hire an Independent Living Support Worker.

Duties may include: shopping (e.g. for food, garden plants), medical appointment assistance, personal correspondence assistance, light household duties.

Find out full details on the Age UK Tunbridge Wells website.

Get in touch!

If you have a story from your organisation that you would like us to share with the Network, such as recent events, campaigns, or awards, please let us know at signpost@ageuk.org.uk.

You can also view a full list of open roles across the network here.

Reminder: Applications for this year’s Warm Homes Programme close Sunday 24 September

A final reminder that applications for this year’s Warm Homes funding close on Sunday 24 September 2023. Find out how to apply ahead of the deadline.

Calling all Partners in England and Wales! Octopus Energy and Age UK are collaborating on the 2023 Warm Homes Programme and applications are now open!

We are pleased to announce that (subject to Ofgem approval and contracts being signed), Octopus Energy will join e.on and Shell Energy as Age UK’s funders of our long-standing Warm Homes Programme. Octopus Energy previously funded Age UK a few years ago so we are delighted to welcome them back into this programme.

The primary objective of the Warm Homes Programme is to address the main causes of fuel poverty and cold related ill-health by providing home energy checks and benefit entitlement checks to improve the living conditions and the quality of life for the most vulnerable older people in England and Wales.

We expect the delivery period to run from approximately November 2023 to mid-March 2024. Due to short timeframes of this programme, we are looking for brand partners who have the capacity and capability to start their delivery as soon as their contracts are signed.

Please note:

If you have already been selected to deliver home energy checks and benefit entitlement checks under the e.on or Shell programmes, we regret to inform you that your application will not be considered as we are unable to fund partners under two funders at the same time. However, if you are funded only for one of those services, you are eligible for Octopus-funded programme for the other service.

Programme Guidelines and Contact Details

Please find attached guidelines for both benefit checks and home energy checks which explain the programme’s requirements in more depth.

If you require further information, please feel free to contact the Project Team via warmhomes@ageuk.org.uk (please use ‘SY13 OCTOPUS QUERY’ in the subject box).

How to Apply

Please note that the applications for this programme will go live via Age UK’s grants management platform on Tuesday 29 August 2023 and must be submitted by 12am (MIDNIGHT) Sunday 24 September 2023.

Applications submitted after the deadline will be automatically rejected by the system:

Click this link to start a new BEC application form

Click this link to start a new HEC application form

Click this link to continue a saved application form

Reminder: National Lottery Cost of Living Fund – Up to £75k Available

A reminder about the new £76m Cost of Living Fund from the National Lottery Community Fund. Grants of up to £75,000 per Partner in England are available – read on for more details including the link to our recent webinar on the topic.

This is a reminder of the new £76m Cost of Living Fund from the National Lottery Community Fund. Grants of up to £75,000 per Partner in England are available and Age UK’s CEO Paul Farmer has met with senior staff at The National Lottery Community Fund to confirm that they are extremely keen to receive applications from Local Age UKs.

About the Fund

This funding is for organisations that support people and communities in England under severe pressure because of the increased cost of living.

The deadline for applications is 16 October 2023 at 12 noon. The National Lottery Community Fund will start funding organisations in October 2023, and finish in January 2024. Any organisation that receives funding must spend it by 31 March 2024.

Click here for full details!

Webinar

Age UK recently hosted a webinar alongside the National Lottery Community Fund where Partners could ask any questions they have at this point about the Fund.

We were delighted to have our CEO, Paul Farmer with us to introduce the event, alongside Ruth Bamford from NLCF’s Strategic Programmes team. 54 Age UK Network colleagues attended, with representation from 38 local Age UKs, alongside Age UK colleagues.

Thank you to everyone who attended, you can view a full recoding of the webinar below:

Click here to view the webinar!

Reminder: Free Cyber Security Webinar for staff and volunteers of local Age UKs and Age Cymrus

Book your place at our latest Cyber Security Webinar! Jez Rogers – Cyber Security Adviser for the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit will run a session on the practical steps staff and volunteers can take to protect against cyber crime.

Following the success of the 3 cyber security webinars that we ran in the Summer, Age UK are offering a further opportunity for staff and volunteers in local Age UKs and Age Cymrus to attend this training.

Cyber-crime impacts us all, in both our daily lives and at work. Recent government statistics suggest that a quarter of all charities were attacked by cyber criminals last year. 

This 2 hour webinar, delivered by Jez Rogers – Cyber Security Adviser for the South East Regional Organised Crime Unit, will help you to understand the threat to you in both your personal life and while at work and your role in cybersecurity at work. 

Jez has a very down-to-earth approach, avoiding jargon and technical complexity and will cover:

  • Current Cyber Threats
  • The motivation of cyber criminals
  • Data Breaches
  • Phishing
  • Securing accounts and passwords
  • Improving our privacy online
  • Securing devices
  • Public Wi-Fi risks
  • Response Planning
  • Cyber Drills

This webinar compliments the session that Jez ran for senior managers earlier in the year, focusing on strategic planning to combat cyber-crime. The webinar is primarily aimed at staff and volunteers and focuses on practical steps they can take to protect against cyber-crime.

Book your place!

The webinar will take place on the following date and people wishing to attend are required to register via clicking on the link and completing the registration information:

Thursday 12 October 2023 from 10:00 until 12:30.

click here to book your place!

Please note we will not be able to provide access to a video recording of this training so those wishing to access this guidance will have to attend the session on the day.

Reminder: Budgeting and Forecasting Workshop | Wednesday 4 October

Age UK’s Financial Governance Team have developed a one-hour webinar for anyone who would like to gain a wider understanding of budgeting and how it works. Find out full details, including how to book your place.

Budgeting and Forecasting in a Charity finance environment can be bewildering for anyone who is unfamiliar with financial management and sometimes confusing for those familiar only with ‘commercial’ accounting practice.

Age UK’s Financial Governance Team have developed a one-hour webinar for anyone who would like to gain a wider understanding of budgeting and how it works. This is a high-level presentation – it won’t turn anyone into an expert, but it will give an understanding of the most important aspects of charity budgeting and forecasting and show you what you need to know.

It will cover:

  • Building a Budget,
  • Timeframes, Income & Expenditure – and the importance of involving budget-holders in the development process
  • What’s often overlooked
  • Assumptions & Scenario Planning
  • Reforecasts & Monitoring
  • Budgets for funding applications
How to book your place

The event will take place on 4th October 2023, starting at 11:00. If you are interested in attending, please register via the following link:

Click here to book your place!

Once registered, you will receive an email acknowledgement which will include all the webinar timings and headline details along with the link to join on the day. Please note that it may not automatically log this into your calendar so please manage that in the way that best suits your needs.

The Financial Governance Team is developing a series of similar introductory sessions, following on from the very successful ‘Finance for non-finance people’ event recently delivered, (and which will be repeated monthly until March 24) so watch out for further details in due course. Alongside Budgeting and Forecasting, the series is likely to include Cashflow forecasting and working capital management, Reserves management, and Monitoring and Reporting.

An update on the Our Shared Future Programme

Following the release of the first consultation paper to CEOs and Chairs this week, this is a quick update on Our Shared Future for colleagues across the Network who may not be involved in the programme itself.

Back in June, we shared an update on Our Shared Future, the project to coproduce a new Network Agreement and Shared Strategy for all of our organisations. Please click here to view that original message to find out all about the programme.

First Consultation Document released to CEOs and Chairs

This week, CEOs and Chairs of all Partners received the first Our Shared Future consultation document, titled: “Summary of Key Proposals for Consultation”. This document outlines the key points that could be included in both the upcoming Shared Strategy and the Network Agreement, following several years of consultation across the Network.

All Partner Boards have been invited to submit their feedback on this Summary of Key Proposals by Friday 10 November. After which a full draft of both the Shared Strategy and the Network Agreement will be produced for further feedback from Partner Boards.

This is an important first step towards finalising a new Shared Strategy and Network Agreement for all of our organisations, so we wanted to give this short update to colleagues across the Network who may not be involved in the programme itself. We will continue to provide updates on Our Shared Future over the coming months.

If you have any questions about your organisation’s role in the process, please speak to your CEO, or get in touch with the OSF Strategy Group: sharedfuture@ageuk.org.uk.

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