105 Courses in Edinburgh

PQASSO (Practical Quality Assurance Standard for Organisations) is a quality standard designed for the voluntary and community sector. Organisations can choose to use the criteria as a self-assessment tool or can go on to external accreditation and gain the Quality Mark at one of three levels, all of which are recognised and approved by the Charity Commission. This half day course provides an excellent introduction to this quality standard, which is now used by some statutory authorities as a pre-requisite for funding.

This half day course is designed for new treasurers, general trustees and management committee members or staff who work in smaller organisations to understand the basics of how to manage the finances within a voluntary or community organisation. It covers all the essential issues ranging from drawing up a budget to ensuring that the organisation has sound financial procedures.

Summary This half day course is designed to help managers and supervisors understand the causes of poor behaviour and look at different strategies for dealing with this. The course can be run as a one-off session or can be incorporated into a series of sessions on managing staff. Alternatively it could be increased to a day-long course with participant’s role playing different scenarios in the afternoon. For voluntary and community organisation participants the course could include dealing with difficult volunteers as well as paid staff.

This half day course is designed to help participants in the voluntary and community sector to monitor and evaluate the work of their organisation effectively and ensure that their working practices are robust and fit for purpose. It can also be relevant to those staff in statutory agencies who work on community projects.

This half day course is designed to help participants learn more about the new legal form for charities, the Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO), which was introduced in January 2013. The session will set the context and background to the introduction of the CIO, explore its potential benefits (and weaknesses) when set against the company limited by guarantee structure and introduce the two constitution models – the Foundation version (where only trustees are members) and the Association model (where the organisation’s membership is wider). By the end of the course participants should have a deeper knowledge of the subject so that they are able to make a more informed choice as to whether this legal entity might work for their organisation.

In some organisations appraisals are seen as an annual chore that has to be undertaken and neither the manager nor the staff gain any real benefit from it. This half day course is designed to help managers appraise their staff effectively so that both parties develop more insight, motivation and a better understanding of each other. It will help participants work with their staff to create work plans that are effective and realistic. This course can be run as a one-off session or as part of a series of sessions on staff management.

This half day course is designed to help managers and supervisors to develop or hone their interviewing skills and ensure that your organisation’s recruitment processes are rigorous but fair. It will cover how to develop an efficient recruitment process, how to read a CV or application form to ensure that you choose the right candidates for interview, how to organise and conduct the interview process and the follow-up procedures. It can be adapted to cover the needs of organisations, statutory agencies or small businesses. Although scheduled as a half day course, it can be extended to cover a whole day to include some role play interviews.

This course, which can be run as a half day (3.5 hours) or a whole day course, is designed to help those who chair or participate in meetings to understand how to run effective meetings that are constructive, concise and actually achieve something! The course can be adapted to cover meetings in general or focus on specific types of meetings such as trustee, director or committee meetings, staff or project meetings.

This half day course is designed for voluntary and community organisations and those involved in community development who need to write funding applications and want to ensure that their bids are clear, focussed and meet the funders’ criteria.

This half day or whole day course is designed around a project planning workbook that will provide participants with questions and practical advice to ensure that a project is well thought-out and practical, with clear aims and objectives. It will also help to ensure that if you are applying for project funding that you have answers to all the likely questions you will be asked. The half day course will cover the basics and ensure that the most important areas of project planning are addressed. The course could be extended to a whole day, covering all the areas and offering time for participants to complete the majority of the work book. The course would be suitable for anyone who is planning a project or who needs to re-focus a project that is not working effectively.