While the elves are busy sorting an agenda, if the mayoral election goes the way we suspect we’ll all need a chat quite soon about what happens next in GMWRAG’s plans to bring some more bodies into the field.
We’ve booked Salford Civic Centre on Friday 17th to get together.
Anyone with an interest in the future of the workforce will be welcome.
Agenda tbc.
Follow @GMWRAGtweetsAs per the title. The minutes are now available in the usual place.
Happy new year to all from GMWRAG and the NWMHWRAG. The next meeting of the latter will take place at 9.30am for a 10am start on Friday the 26th January 2024.
We’re just typing the year above as practice for remembering that it is 2024.
The meeting will take place at Greater Manchester Law Centre, 667-669 Stockport Road, Levenshulme, Manchester M12 4QE.
The speaker will be Bee Joyce, the DWP Trauma Informed Integration Lead. Please follow the link for a working definition of “trauma-informed”.
Upon arrival please look out for a man who looks very like Jason Orange from Take That.
This week has seen the launch of the Greater Manchester Poverty Monitor 2022. The Poverty Monitor reveals the scale of poverty across Greater Manchester and covers ten themes: Child poverty, debt, deprivation, educational attainment, fuel and food insecurity, health, homelessness, housing, social security and the labour market.
Key findings for the whole of Greater Manchester include:
The Poverty Monitor is a unique resource for those seeking to tackle poverty in Greater Manchester. It does this by equipping stakeholders with the evidence base they need to tackle socio-economic disadvantage in their own activities, from policy development to service design, advocacy and campaigning.
The data is presented through a combination of charts, maps and tables. A number of the data visualisations are interactive, enabling users to identify the data that best meets their needs. Data is provided at a city region and local authority level and, where possible, at a more local level (i.e. electoral ward, middle support output area of lower super output area).
The invites are ready for our session tomorrow at 3 to discuss our wish list for the mayor’s office.
if anyone wishes to participate in the Zoom convo tomorrow please email danmanville@gmlaw.org.uk
Hi all
Thanks to Oldham relocating their council premises they can no longer accommodate us on 23rd. Normally we’d bump it to the Law Centre but the Law Centre will be in full audit mode that day so, too, can’t accommodate us.
However… things are moving along nicely with the work with GMCA and after Mr Burnham’s visit last summer we’re now in a position to give him the wish list of (does “demands” sound too much?) he asked for when we met so despite being homeless we’d like to put something online to talk that through. Say 3pm on 23rd on Zoom.
Sadly Dan’s elves met their demise when the LC updated their tech, so if you can email danmanville@gmlaw.org.uk Dan will strive to email out a link to anyone who’s interested in participating.
Greater Manchester Law Centre Xmas Invite – Wednesday 20th December from 6pm
667/669 Stockport Road, Levenshulme, Manchester ,M12 4QE
Join us over an Xmas mince pie and drink to celebrate another year of fighting for free Access to Justice. A year in which GMLC:
It will be an opportunity for a sneak preview of our 10 years of (In)justice event at Manchester Museum in January too – based upon 10 voices of people denied justice and 10 art exhibits representing their stories.
It wil be a chance to say hello and thank you to everyone that has made this happen. We are inviting staff, volunteers and friends to join us.
Please RSVP to developmentworker@gmlaw.org.uk so that we can make sure we have enough food etc
Best Wishes
Jason
Er, it has been a long time coming. The first almost timely/contemporaneous update of the NWMHWRAG minutes page of 2023. Yes folks we are almost back on track. Even the password seems to be working again.
Slightly undone by techy bods having a hissy fit and no longer supporting Twitter of Space X or whatever it’s called this week so what we post on here won’t magically appear on there with zero effort on there. Something we deeply resent. Yes, we’re going to have to “do” something. Rest assured we are “on it”.
So, we may have waited until all the members of NWMHWRAG were out at a meeting before posting this :).
Just wanted to let you all know that a small backlog of emails going back, ooh, “months” and containing minutes for this years meetings has now been addressed and those minutes have been uploaded to the NWMHWRAG minutes archive where they could be viewed were it not for the fact that there appears to be a small password issue. Well, quite a long password in reality but the issue itself is, hopefully, small.
Whilst we’re 100% confident we know what the password for the minutes is (because we’re privileged and get to see it), it has decided for some reason to not let us in. No obvious reason for this. It just is. Possibly a punishment for being tardy with web site updates.
In order to make sure this is not just an “us” thing, it would be appreciated if one or two members of the group could finish up their Franco Manco pizza; clean their sticky fingers and test out whether they can access the minutes and then let us know.
Please don’t volunteer for this activity if you can’t remember the password. It’s Friday for goodness sake. Only try and access if you’re one of those sensible people who has definitely remembered the password 🙂
On the other hand, if no-one steps forward, then yeah just email us and we’ll remind you of the password and wait for you to tell us that’s all fine and it is in fact just us.
But there’s finally an agenda!
Wednesday October 4th at GM Law Centre, 669 Stockport Rd, 10 am kickoff. Admiring the new signage is mandatory…
10am Helen Saul, DWP ACSSL for Salford who’s going to update us on developments with the ACSSLs
11am Dee Lynch, Advice worker at Maternity Action. A few people have noticed that Maternity Action have been working in GM for a few months now (particularly at the Law Centre where one of their workers is squatting) and Dee’s going to tell us all about the project and what they’re delivering.
11.45, brew break.
12pm Dan Manville’s going to update us on developments since the illustrious visitor graced our masses last time and the background.
1pm (ish) Lunch. There are a wealth of various kebab and cheap curry houses within 10 minutes walk of GMLC but of special mention is Levy Bakery (yes it IS Levy… heathens) and Khan’s is another Law Centre favourite, or there’s Asda 3 mins away if you’ve no soul money.
2pm the blogger, activist and at least one attendant’s gaffer, Ames Taylor will be Zooming in from a remote tropical island (NAWRA doesn’t get all the glamour) to discuss Tom Royston’s comments at the last meeting about strategic litigation and the nexus between debt advisers and us Welfs.
2.45 Brew time
And finally… 3pm Ryan Bradshaw’s coming along to tell us about Leigh Day’s new northern Human Rights team.
And once Ryan’s finished we might find time for a chat.
G.M.W.R.A.G. 
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