A successful VCSE Big Meet!

6th May 2026

The VCSE Big Meet 2026 took place on Thursday 23rd April at the Great Victoria Hotel. Organised and hosted by Community Action Bradford & District, the event takes place annually in order to bring people together, make valuable connections, share insight and have important discussions related to the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) sector.

We had 96 people join us for the event, the room was packed out with Chairs, Trustees, Leaders and passionate VCSE colleagues. We had 5 fabulous speakers, between them representing more than 13 vital voluntary sector organisations.

As a reminder, our speakers and panellists were:

• Debra Allcock Tyler, Chief Executive at Directory of Social Change, Trustee of In-Kind Direct, co-Chair of the Soldiering On Awards as well as holding some public sector governance roles
• Carol Peltier, Co-Founder and Chair of the Black Health Forum, Chair of the Women’s Health Network and the first female Chair of the Race Equality Network
• James Brown, new CEO of Active Bradford and Trustee of PSC Support
• Kaneez Khan, Faith and Communities Coordinator at Wellsprings Together, and Founder of Primrose Consultancy
• Javed Khan, CEO of Bradford District Community Empowerment Network (CNet) and Centre Manager at West Bowling Community Advice and Training Centre

Please download the presentation slides [PDF, 4MB] from James, and Carol for you to reflect back on.

And here are the links to sign up for the Leaders’ and Chairs and Trustees Networks, and to purchase It’s a Battle On the Board. 

The Feedback

Based on the feedback, we would say the event was a huge success! A selection of comments are included in the event round-up report.

If you attended and weren’t able to provide feedback on the day, you can still feed back via this short survey. 

We welcome all feedback, anything that you liked or enjoyed, and constructive feedback about what you might like to see next year.

On which note, we’d like to give an overview of what we are going to change next year based on this year’s feedback.

• We are going to closely consider our venue choice next year. You liked the location and accessibility but we know we need more ventilation and need to keep an eye on the noise levels from catering staff.
• We are going to make it more clear when food will be served, and provide a space for early-arrivals to bring their lunch and eat together if you would like to! We think the old ‘lunch / dinner / tea’ debate left some of you confused!
• Next year we are going to take our waitlist tickets offline, through emails and direct approach to eligible organisations. We know doing it online caused some confusion this year, our fault!
• We are going to give the keynote speaker a little bit longer so they don’t run out of time!

Next year…

For the last couple of years we have run the VCSE Big Meet event in April, next year we will be bring it later into the year, towards September. Watch out for the save the date!

The reason for this is, we will be planning the return of a very special event. The Bradford Big Advice Day will return in late June for Small Charities Week. This will be a marketplace of voluntary sector support organisations, funders and businesses working in this space, as well as a range of helpful workshops. More details on this soon!

Thank you

We have a lot of thanks to offer.

Thank you to our guests who made this event possible, who purchased a ticket, who showed up and reminded us exactly why we put this event on. You are what makes this sector great, you are a reminder that we are stronger together.

Thank you to our speakers and panellists who gave up their time, travelled great distances to be here to share what they know with our guests. Each one of you were brilliant and shared some funny, memorable, heartfelt and insightful stories. We thank you for your openness, honesty and for giving a piece of yourself over to the audience.

Thank you to the Great Victoria Hotel, who offered their beautiful venue with competitive pricing, and thank you to Andrew, the chef, for offering a bespoke and inclusive menu.

Thank you to our sponsors who really put their money where their mouth is, not just investing in the VCSE sector but putting their all into making it a better place, offering insight and practical solutions. If you’d like to get in touch with our sponsors, their contact details are below:

AideCRM: If you wanted to follow-up with Terry from AideCRM, do email him directly at terry@pipemediadesign.co.uk or arrange a chat here https://www.aidecrm.org/book-a-demo

Access Insurance: Visit their website at https://www.accessinsurance.co.uk/charity to see what they offer and get your no-obligation insurance quote, or call 0333 344 7420 to speak to an adviser.

Bradford Community Payroll and Accounts: visit their website, email them at payroll@bradfordcpa.co.uk or call 01274 787 800 to receive a quote. If your organisation’s annual income is under £100,000 you can get 3 months free payroll and onboarding, quoting EasyStart!