3rd Annual UIMPROVE Facilitators Conference, May 2009

Dave holds a special place in the history of UIMPROVE as he commissioned the UIC's first ever piece of work way back in 1994 - a training course for Facilitators. In June 2008, Dave took on the job of Chief Executive at City South Manchester Housing Trust, an organisation formed through the transfer of just under 5000 properties from Manchester City Council. In this session, Dave talks through the challenges faced by CSM and explains how he and his management team are using UIMPROVE to address these issues with the help of his newly-trained Facilitators.

Fife Council has a small but very active pool of Facilitators, which includes Rab and Mhairi. The organisation has been putting its managers through Improve Your Projects for several years. In this session, Rab and Mhairi discuss the question 'Why UIMPROVE?', and explain how they have taken a project-by-project approach to business improvement, service planning and culture. They also reveal how Fife Council achieved its highest EFQM score ever.

Those who attended the 2008 Conference will have seen speakers from Incommunities cover their progress before. At the time of the 2008 conference, Incommunities had just taken a UIMPROVE Licence and were about to start running their own in-house training using some of their Facilitators. A year on, and with numerous courses under their belts, this session covers how things have gone, how the demand for Facilitators is outstripping supply and how partner organisations are clamouring for assistance.

This year the competition was so hot that the quiz resulted in three teams drawing. A nail biting finish ensued with a tie-breaker round. The winning charity which received a cheque for �250 was the NSPCC nominated by Andy Mead and his team mates.

Maurya was trained as a Facilitator back in 2004. Shortly afterwards she moved back to her native North East as a Director in Newcastle Primary Care Trust. After fulfilling several roles she is now running her own organisation. Maurya talks here about what it was like being the lone UIMPROVE voice in an organisation and what she's doing now that she's the boss.

Mike is another old friend of UIMPROVE. Currently he is the measurement guru for the NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement and the NHS Wales Patient Safety Campaign. Mike is seen here running an interactive session around the use of data in organisations and he looks at three case studies where he shares his insight on how to collect, analyse and display the right data for the job.

Pam and Juliet recently trained as Facilitators and for one of their first assignments they facilitated an Ishikawa diagram on Weaver Vale's gas servicing project. In their session they provide an excellent overview of the tool, sharing plenty of practical tips along the way.

Once again, a testing range of questions was put to the panel, which this year was made up of Sally, Dave, Richard, Rab and Mike. See what they had to say here.

We were honoured this year to be joined by Lou, Myron's daughter who can be seen here giving a wonderful, impromptu talk about life with her father and how she has continued his work in her own field of education.




Lou Tribus

Michael Newey and Claudia Bartram, Broadland Housing Group	Michelle Wright, Lynda Rock, Angela Salami and Dave Power, City South Manchester Housing Trust
Gaynor Balshaw, Sharon Bruen, Kerry Parr and Yvonne Taylor, Cobalt Housing	Jackie Walters, NJProperties, Mike Davidge, NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement, Sue Walters, SEW Consulting
Mhairi Mullen, Rab Lindsay, Norman Laird and Andrew Stokes, Fife Council	Mike Brooks and Alison Hernandez, Improve Plus
Ange Hodgson, Sally Redfern, Tamsin Wilson and Jason Pollard, Incommunities	Maurya Cushlow and Gillian Johnson, Newcastle and North Tyneside Community Health
Chris Barlow, Anna Butler, Claire Boyd and Dave Ferrier (he's in a band you know), Pure Innovations	Mark Hendry, Southern, Andy Mead, National Express East Anglia and Tricia Meade, The Institution of Railway Operators. Andy took away the �250 quiz prize for his nominated charity - the NSPCC
Caroline Hubbard, South Yorkshire Housing Association	Juliet Aitken, Pam Latham, Marianne Richards and Paul Shufflebotham, Weaver Vale Housing Trust