Project management

The Big Lottery fund asked us:

How will you ensure that this project is delivered effectively and is well managed?

We plan to respond as follows:

Delivery of the project

The project will be delivered by an education team consisting of a Club Leader and two part-time Club Helpers, all part-time posts.

The Club Leader recruited will have significant educational experience, for instance a recently qualified teacher, or a teacher returning to work after a career break, who wishes to work part-time. The Club Helpers will also have educational experience, for instance student teachers.

The hours of work, at weekends and in school holidays, would be ideally suited to someone who is in higher education, or who has child-minding responsibilities in normal working hours. We will work closely with Swansea Institute of Higher Education (the local teacher training college) to recruit staff.

The staff once recruited will undergo a comprehensive induction programme, delivered by the Management Committee. Pay rates for the Leader and the two Helpers will be set as far as possible at levels comparable to similar posts at the City and County of Swansea.

Management of the project

The project will be managed by the Family Learning Management Committee, which is formally constituted as a Subcommittee of the Church Council of Mumbles Methodist Church. If the project goes ahead, the Committee will be extended, to include representatives from Penlan and Brynhyfryd Methodist Churches. The Club Leader, on appointment, would also join the Management Committee, as the only paid committee member.

The Management Committee will include members appointed to each of the following posts:

1. Chair of Management Committee, with overall responsibility for the project. Currently the Chair is Andy Shercliff, who as MD of educational charity XLWales from 1996 to 2003, gained significant experience in large scale family learning, and delivering successful projects funded by the National Lottery.

2. Finance Manager, with the necessary financial experience to monitor and control income and expenditure for the project.

3. Personnel Manager, with the personnel experience to assist the Committee to appoint staff, and to provide line management for staff.

The Management Committee would meet quarterly throughout the life of the Family Building Club project, and would be responsible for all statutory and legal requirements relating to the project, as well as for ensuring that the project meets the outcomes, budgets and targets stated in this proposal.

In doing so, the Management Committee will be able to draw upon:

a) The existing expertise of the Church Council of Mumbles Methodist Church, for instance in financial accounting for Lottery projects (the church has recently a completed a major refurbishment funded in part by a large grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund).

b) The wider expertise of the Methodist Church, for instance in providing well-proven child protection policies.

Use of volunteers

The Big Lottery fund asked us:

* whether any volunteers will take part in the project

* explain what they will do

* how much time you expect them to give.

We plan to respond as follows:

From past experience, we believe it is not practical to involve volunteers in the delivery of technology-related family learning sessions, as it is not possible to recruit volunteers with both the necessary skills and the long-term time commitment.

However, management of the project will be entirely voluntary, and will be carried out by members of the Management Committee, as described in section 5.0.

In the first six months of the project, approximately 30 person days of Management Committee time will be required to recruit and train staff, and then work with staff to develop the initial programme of projects. Thereafter, they will require approximately 5 person days per quarter to manage the project.