Season's Greetings from all at Compact Voice

At Compact Voice we've had an eventful year in 2010; the renewed Compact was finally launched, staff have come and gone, the voluntary sector has seen unprecedented cuts starting to hit home, and our partner organisation the Commission for the Compact announced it will shut its doors by April 2011.

Through spring and summer we held a series of regional events to promote Compact working, learning that a lot of good practice is going on in areas such as Merton, Thurrock and Lewisham. More of these high-performing areas were profiled on our Compact Map, and captured in the wider research undertaken by BMG on our behalf.

The UK elections offered a chance to get prospective MPs to pledge their support for the Compact and the voluntary sector, and the new PM was quick to do so following the formation of the coalition government. In the months that followed, a renewal of the document - to make it much shorter and to add accountability measures to accompany it - was also announced, and the process got underway in September.

The second half of the year also saw the departure of long-term Compact advocate Paul Barasi, who was replaced a little later by Adam Pickering. Nicole Catenazzi, team and communications assistant, also moved to take up the role of Compact Advocate left vacant by Daniel Fluskey's temporary departure, and was replaced by Neena Bhati. Dugald McNaughtan, the Communications lead also announced he would leave in the new year.

November saw another successful Compact Week play out around the country with awards presented on the Tuesday night, then after a protracted consultation period the new Compact document and accountability measures were finally launched by the now MP for Civil Society Nick Hurd and our chair Simon Blake in December. We'll be announcing more detail about how we'll support rolling it out across the country in early 2011. So, now we're taking a well-earned break - and we hope you'll enjoy doing the same!

Thanks for your support in 2010, and happy holidays,

Dugald, Neena, Tom, Oli and Adam - Compact Voice