Firstly, I’d like to wish you all a very happy new year.

Last year was difficult for all of us. We faced challenges that most of us had never imagined. 2021 will continue to ask a lot of us, but the beginning of the vaccination rollout means we can start to hope for the return of some normality.

This year has been particularly challenging for voluntary and community groups groups; we will continue to support local voluntary organisations with advice, local training and volunteer recruitment. If your group requires support please get in contact.

Happy holidays and warm wishes from the whole team at Communities 1st! 

Thank you to all our incredible volunteers, who have given so much of their time this year to help us get through this crisis. Amazingly, local people continue to rally together, allowing us to deepen and extend that support through the winter and beyond. Residents are still delivering food, medicines, and prescriptions, offering friendship to isolated people, and last week, volunteers started to provide stewarding and administrative support to local GP surgeries as they begin to roll out the vaccine.

Hertfordshire to Move into Tier 2

The government have announced that Hertfordshire will move into Tier 2: High Alert, in the Government's new system of Covid-19 Alert Levels. Communities 1st, in conjunction with Communities Help Hertfordshire partners, will continue to provide essential services to vulnerable members of the community as the county moves into this new stage.

As we’re approaching December and more talk about potential vaccines against Covid-19 it’s natural that we all start to think of this period as one of a new chapter.

More than ever, with the backdrop of Covid, there’s a real air of ‘next phase’ in our tentative steps forward the festive holidays. We all understand that it’s on us to think and behave differently.

This theme is at the top of my mind as I think about the way Communities 1st – and so many of our member organisations – need to move forward and structure our delivery for a changed world.

Having now completed the second week of lockdown 2.0, and as we approach the Winter months, it's more important than ever to look after yourselves, and your staff and volunteers. If there’s anything we can do to support your organisation, please let us know and we will do our best to help!

Over recent weeks, some member organisations, groups, and charities have told us they have planned to again accelerate their response, rejuvenate their delivery, and do whatever they are able to, in order to help the county through Lockdown 2.

Voluntary and community groups in St Albans District are encouraged to apply to a grants fund aimed at helping the most vulnerable people.

St Albans City and District Council is distributing up to £18,700 in this year’s second round of awards from its Community Grants Fund.

One priority is to fund schemes that help people recover from the impact of the COVID-19 emergency.

For the second round, the Council is encouraging applications that particularly benefit older people and the District’s BAME communities.

We know you are probably fed-up of the phrase ‘Hope this email finds you well.’ Expressing exactly what we mean and our feeling at the minute is hard, as coronavirus continues to affect our lives, our loved ones, and our livelihoods. Online spaces can be deeply impersonal space and emails doubly so.

The second round of Community Grants Fund 2020-21 will open next week on Tuesday 10th November and will close on Monday 11th January 2021.

We understand that due to changes to government guidance regarding Covid-19 and the lockdown starting on Thursday 4th November, there may be an impact on staffing and resources available to charities and community groups.

Footballer Marcus Rashford speaks for many when he says: “I have no interest in party politics. Letting millions of children in the UK go hungry at night is only an issue of humanity. We need to do better.”

Last month, the report, Levelling Up Our Communities: Proposals for a New Social Covenant, was published by Danny Kruger, a Conservative MP and former “civil society tsar”. 

The report was commissioned in June by the Prime Minister Boris Johnson, with the aim of examining how the country could “sustain the community spirit we saw during lockdown”.