David Wilcox's comments

Sophia - I was chatting yesterday with Paul Webster of NAVCA - the national organisation for local infrastructure orgaisations, and that's one good route to local community and voluntary orgs. Last night I was along at the Royal Society of Medicine at a new members event - Ann is an associate. They were very keen on the associate's role as a way for the profession to connect with other interests and vice-versa. That may be the case with some other professional bodies.

I think we need to map the landscape. To help with that - from your perspective - who might NOT fall into our sphere of interest? I think our focus is membership orgs involved in socially beneficial activity beyond just member services? I guess we wouldn't be so much interested in organisations providing mainly personal serices. How about Institute of Directors, for example?

Sophia - thanks so much to you, Matthew Taylor and others at RSA for being prepared to share openly learning from the early phases of RSA Networks. It shows, to me anyway, how important leadership, culture and individual attitudes are: whatever the investment in technology. As Steve Dale said It's the people who matter.

I hope we can use the lessons that you highlight as a part of the framework we need to help others on the same path. Meanwhile, the act of publishing openly sets a standard for what's needed to get a useful discussion started.

Laura - Matthew's RSA blog is going really well with other staff input, maybe to the extent that it could be re-branded:-). I think it is really encouraging that staff feel able to engage with Fellows, and anyone else interested, on a public blog. Interestingly, it gets more staff input than the private RSA Networks site. As a blogger, I'm much more interested in posting in public because of the greater chance of links and unexpected conversations. I wonder if it is the same for RSA staff? Teasing out what works best where is one of things we hope to do here, and RSA is proving a great test place.

Thanks Ben - love these cross-disciplinary insights:-) New analogY?

That's really helpful ... as ever! We are still figuring out how to develop this Membership Project. Should it have members:-)? Current thinking is some main partners (currently RSA and NCVO) with a core group of enthusiasts emerging who want to take forward particular work packages or events. How about a coffee next time you are south of Watford?

Further thought - are their any upcoming NAVCA events we could hitch into? We are doing something at NCVO membership conference April 22 for example.