Welcome

Public Health and Active Lifestyles Working Group

24 March

Secretariat Update.

Alliance by Numbers. Members 750. (recently joining EE, Newcastle

University, Equity Release Council) 5k Tweets. 4.9 Twitter Followers. 290+ Posts. 15 Themed Areas. 2 New Blogs Every week.

http://ageactionalliance.org/overcoming-the-barriers-to-access-for-older-people/

Where next for the Age Action Alliance? 2015 Review for the Partnership Development Group

Overview.

On 30 September 2014, the Age Action Alliance celebrated its third anniversary. Mindful of the need to review the value of the Alliance to its Members, and of the General Election on 7 May 2015, the Secretariat marked the 3rd Anniversary of the Alliance with a membership survey, with the support of enei (Employers Network for Equality and Inclusion).

This paper shares some of the analysis from the survey results with the Partnership Development Group, to enable us to reflect on the strengths of the Alliance and gather evidence of its value and strengths to support its future strategic direction.

Background.

The Alliance was launched on 30 September 2011, initially involving a relatively small coalition of enthusiastic cross sector organizations and older people, mostly drawn from the English regional forums on ageing. Activity was focused within a select number of working groups and face to face meetings, with older people and organisations, to discuss issues and agree collaborative and practical action. Secretariat resource was largely directed towards facilitating meetings of these groups and introducing individual members to encourage member led collaboration.

Since then, the network has grown significantly. From about 100 members in 2012, Membership has grown to over 720 Members, with a growing social media following, particularly on Twitter (4000+). The number of Working Groups has doubled and there is now greater regional based activity.

The new Alliance website (launched in May 2013 and made possible by the European Commission, Beth Johnson Foundation and Age UK) played a significant role. This digital platform significantly enhanced our ability to share information, opportunities and good practice, enabling our networks to connect with others (online and offline) to contribute to our Latest thinking blog, 15 Working Groups and related Theme pages, Resources, Regional Networks (South West and North West, with plans for a meeting of West Midlands members in March 2015 ), Photo gallery and our popular Monday morning email update.

 While measurement of Alliance outcomes is complex and delivering collaborative outputs has been challenging - particularly in the context of austerity and reduced capacity within Member organisations and Secretariat - Members have been clear in response to the 2014 Membership Survey that they value the network and wish to see it continue. This paper therefore aims to support an informed discussion by the Partnership Development Group about the future of the Alliance.

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Thank you.

Russell.