Chair of CLOA, Ian Brooke announces a new Associate sponsor and reflects on what you told us was important in the recent members survey. 

The CLOA members survey – What you said …..

I’m pleased to say that we’ve started the year in a very positive place.  Our membership has increased to 250 members, and I’m delighted to welcome Mace as a new sponsor.  

I’ve worked with Mace for a number of years on a range of projects and I believe their services and the solution focused way they do business has a great fit with CLOA.  

Thanks to those of you made the time to fill in our survey, we had a good response and the findings provide some very useful insights. At our last Executive meeting we reviewed the results, this blog summarises the headline messages and highlights some of things we are doing with the results.  

What you think of the membership offer

You told us that you are very satisfied with what’s included in the membership package and that it provides good value for money.  The most important benefits to you are:

•          Having access to the latest issues, innovative projects and pilot studies
•          Being able to exchange knowledge, ideas and best practice
•          The ability to influence the development of national policy
•          Being part of a network of informed and influential opinion
•          Regular e-bulletins with sector news and information on key issues

We will continue to develop these areas to further enhance your membership.

Our focus

The survey supported our strategic aims of – providing quality advice and support and an informed and coherent voice at a national level to champion, support, and advocate for best practice.  We have used this information to develop a strap line that simplifies our strategic aims – “Local leadership with a National voice.”

We said that we had one clear value which was that CLOA is totally independent and asked you to tell us know what other values your association must have. Support, integrity, innovation and collaboration were some of the values that were important to you. We are now fine tuning these and adding a statement to say what each one means to CLOA, we will ensure that these values are at the heart of all we do on your behalf.

Sector support 

You told us that you want tailored support for specific local challenges, peer to peer support and there was also a lot of interest in developing regional networks.

The main areas you want support on are:

• Making the case for investing in culture and leisure.
• Increasing the contribution of culture and leisure to health and wellbeing
• The role of culture and leisure in place making
• The economic impact of culture and leisure
• New opportunities  for income generation

We are in conversations with key partners such as Arts Council England and Sport England to see how we can enhance and join up our sector support. We have also worked with the Local Government Association on a new officer leadership course that will be piloted in February.

Get involved

In April we will be asking for nominations to join CLOAs Executive. So if you want to become more actively involved then please do give me a call on 01865 252705 or email Heidi at info@cloa.org.uk.

Ian Brooke, Chair of CLOA