Last week, W3RT CVS were delighted to host their first in-person event since October 2019 in the form of their annual conference. With a theme of collaboration, CVS welcomed around 55 attendees to the Holywell Community Centre to hear from the CVS Team, W3RT's Neighbour Together project and a range of organisations in the community whose work showcase the spirit of collaboration in differing ways. Many attendees commented on how good it felt to be back at in-person events after such a long period of being unable to network with each other. 

As well as looking back and reflecting on the work done by the voluntary sector over the last 12 months, the conference allowed the CVS team to launch W3RT's new volunteering platform, Golden Volunteer and to discuss the work the team is doing around all aspects of equality, diversity and inclusion. For more information about either of those topics, click the links above to blog posts specifically about those topics. 

Thank you to everyone who attended the conference and we hope that we will be able to host more in person events, subject to Covid restrictions in 2022. We would also like to thank each of our guest speakers, Peter Taylor, Mayor of Watford, Enoch Kangaraj from One Vision, Jack Leggetter from TeamHerts Volunteering, Freddy Chester from Three Rivers District Council and Bilqees Mauthoor, Chair of Watford Borough Council and founder of the Delete Consortium. Finally, we would like to thank West Herts College for providing the catering for the event, especially considering the fact their students had to self-isolate in the days leading up to the conference. 

As 2021 comes to an end, we hope that this conference is the beginning of more in-person events that W3RT CVS can host in 2022. However, we are fully aware that 2022 may bring its own challenges so we would encourage you to sign up for the monthly CVS newsletter here to keep up to speed on the latest events, activities and supported offered by W3RT CVS. To sign up for the newsletter, click here.