20 C O N T E X T 1 0 7 : N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 8 dramatic added value to the sector has been well recognised by the work of Heritage Link, the third sector’s link organisation for heritage bodies in England andWales. Less well appreciated by either national bodies or sector stakeholders is the dramatic added value that volunteers have brought to the sector through their contribution to the IHBC’s work. There is a broad awareness of the unique quality and relevance of our branch-operated voluntary events. However, there is not much understanding of the principles of how a professional organisation empowers and includes volunteers to achieve such added value. That is why so few bodies have matched the scale of uplift or added value that the IHBC’s volunteers have brought to our institute and sector, and why so few understand the high value we place on our volunteers’ work. Historically, our voluntary added value is well represented by the work of David Baxter at Banffy Castle in Romania. His work there at the International Built Heritage Conservation Training Centre, co-founded by the IHBC through him, has raised the profile of the IHBC in Eastern Europe to the extent that we have much the same level of awareness there for our work as the SPAB has here for its operations. All this and more, including a Europa Nostra award and EC funding for project expansion, has been achieved despite the institute’s limited practical involvement. Today the IHBC has more developed corporate procedures. This is a consequence primarily of our need to observe the same high standards of regulatory control we expect of others. With this in mind we have introduced CapacityBuild to help us give dedicated (if often only nominal, and typically voluntary) support to independent or partnership initiatives that align with our own wide-ranging interests. Our days in Northern Ireland show what can be done when we assist voluntary efforts, as does David Baxter’s work. CapacityBuild will provide a route for anyone to seek assistance from the IHBC. To find out more about CapacityBuild, monitor our website’s home page or sign up for our newsblog. Here you are kept up to date by subscribing to free e-mail news updates from our home page.Where anyone can suggest a project, our news service also lets anyone send in news. If you want to let us know what is happening in your sector, let us know through the website. Seán O’Reilly, [email protected] members as well as full members – allowed the institute to orchestrate a programme that would otherwise have been impossible for us. The costs of a consultant doing this could not be, and without the branch’s local knowledge, national office approaches would have been stymied. The idea for the programme began with the national council’s decision to meet in Belfast. Holding meetings of our council across the UK originates in an early agreement, following my appointment as Scotland-based director that at least once a year we should sit away from our then regular home in London. A peripatetic progress of council would logically focus first on the capitals of the devolved governments, although we tested the practice first at Birmingham, with a corporate away day in September 2006. The arrangement was developed in the director’s home territory of Scotland, where the council visit of 2007 was much enhanced by our opening 10th anniversary celebrations. These included a Historic Scotlandsponsored reception and a practitioners’ seminar exploring issues of regeneration. The council’s progress in Scotland was hailed as a triumph that would be hard to match. In Northern Ireland, with the backing of fiscal resources of the national organisation, the national branch responded in kind, adding even more to the thinking behind our original approach. First it enhanced the added value of volunteers by bringing so much personal and voluntary effort to the organisation of the event. The branch’s local knowledge encouraged the council to focus on the shift in the delivery of conservation services, which through delegation will soon see much greater local empowerment in its management. Following our programme, supported by and with the full encouragement of the government and civil service, it is fair to say we have transformed awareness and perception of our work across the province. The events in Northern Ireland show how we can work with volunteers, even if in this case the volunteers are our own members and led by a trustee of the organisation. However, outside the IHBC’s small band of national and branch officers, there remains considerable voluntary capacity that can help achieve the wide-ranging charitable and corporate interests of the IHBC. CapacityBuild is being developed to access just that potential. The capacity of volunteers to deliver David McDonald Cynthia Smith Bob Kindred
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