East London Business Alliance for Leabank Square?

I have just recieved this brilliant letter from Emrana at the East London Business Alliance. I am sure we have all seen articles in the East London Advertiser & Hackney Gazette about the projects this fantastic organisation has helped facilitate.

I am meeting her on Wed 4 February - to chat about how they may be able to help us out.

Now - I know we ALL love gardening & painting & woodworking & tidying & doing up Leabank Square - and I am not going to agree to anything that will take projects over from any of us. But this could potentially be a great way to add to any projects we might have for the spring & summer seasons.

Please could you all send me some ideas of projects we could think of doing with this orgainisation. And - NO!! - we can't just pick the projects we don't want to do (dog-poo collection, weeding, sweeping, etc!).

Think big!! Think creative!! Think what we could do with a few extra pairs of hands!!

Dear Sóna,

I work for ELBA (East London Business Alliance) as the Volunteer Coordinator and sit within the Hackney Team at ELBA I thought it might be worth while in asking if you, your organisation if you would like potential support and would like to meet ELBA.

ELBA (East London Business Alliance) can potentially offer pro-bono support for voluntary and public sector organisations through employee volunteers from our City and Canary Wharf companies sharing their skills, time and expertise for instance joining as trustees on a board and helping with business planning, providing legal advise, business skills, mentoring, IT skills, also giving one day support through team challenges, these help organisations with decorating, gardening or cleaning etc. However other support can be offered depending on individual needs of organisations but this would be discussed in an initial meeting and tailored to their needs where possible.

We have done of team challenge type volunteering opportunities with Hackney Homes coordinated by Jackie Lotus. We worked in revamping many community estate halls around Hackney and were looking to do something thing similar on centres which are more focused on Children service providers i.e. youth clubs etc as apposed to multi functional centres we have worked in before.

ELBA would be unable source any funding for the organisations. However our employee volunteers can provide some of their time/expertise in helping with Business Planning and funding bid applications.

I attach a brief overview of ELBA and other information which may be of might interest to you. Attached also is an organisation registration form that all new organisations that are supported by ELBA need to complete.

If they are interested in any of the potential support we offer or would like to know more you can email me and I will get in contact and organise a meeting to visit and learn more about your organisation and their areas of need. In this introductory meeting I can answer any further questions they may have.

Look forward to hearing from you soon.

Regards
Emrana Akthar


Project Co-ordinator