It’s lonely at the top.   Leaders can sometimes feel isolated and without support.   But now more than ever it is important that those who lead our local third sector organisations get the support they need.

The Thrive Leaders Network aims to bring leaders together to be inspired, to share knowledge, resources and opportunities, and to connect with one another to build their networks.

As the one whose responsibility it is to guide and develop your organisation, you’ll probably already be connected into many networks and groups.   But these are likely to be focused on particular themes or issues.   How often do you get the chance to just discuss your own leadership, get support for yourself and develop your own skills to help you strengthen your leadership?

At our free bi-monthly meetings you’ll get the chance to:

Meet other local third sector leaders & strengthen your connections
Learn from others experiences or share your own
Find out about resources, training and toolkits that can help you to develop as a leader
Learn about opportunities for leadership development or for working together
Take time out from ‘managing’ to think about developing as a leader

Our meetings will mix together presentations, facilitated discussions and group exercises as well as opportunities to network with each other.

Over the coming months we’ll be visiting topics to get you thinking.  Our very first session explored ‘servant leadership’.   We’ve also looked at communication, success and trust. Perhaps our meetings will provide lessons to put into practice?   Or perhaps you’ll just be challenged to think differently.

There are many ways in which you can develop as a leader or can develop your organisation.   We’ll be using a ‘Learning Circles’ toolkit to help guide our sessions through these options.   This proprietary toolkit will be made available exclusively to Network members with the expectation that through members experiences the tool itself will improve over time.

But importantly the Network is about you and other third sector leaders in North East Lincolnshire.  So as we meet and interact, I hope ideas will flow that help us develop the Network itself.

Practicalities

The Thrive Leaders Network meets bi-monthly on a Monday evening from 5pm-7pm.

Venues are usually around Grimsby, Immingham or Cleethorpes – always North East Lincolnshire.

Meetings are FREE and unless you try and decide it’s not for you, we’ll join you up as a member of the Network if you attend meetings.

A simple buffet is provided at the start of the meeting to feed your brain and encourage networking.

The Network is open to any leaders from Third Sector Organisations based in North East Lincolnshire.  If you’re not leading the organisation then it may not be for you, but every organisation is going to have someone involved who should get involved with the Network.

If you’re a Trustee for your charity then if you’re the Chair then you too may be in a leadership position – but it may also be that your General Manager/Chief Officer etc should be the one to get involved.  We have a Thrive Trustee Network too – that may be of more relevance to you.  However, we’re not prescriptive – if you think you’re a leader and want to lead better then please get yourself along (see our joining comments here).

The Network is an initiative from the North East Lincolnshire Third Sector Hub (read about that here) which is Yorkshire Forward funded (thanks YF) and run from Voluntary Action North East Lincolnshire (VANEL) in Grimsby.

Karl Elliott runs, manages and develops the Network with help from his Third Sector Hub team, and meetings are co-facilitated with Peter Fryer, a consultant from TrojanMice.

This website is our online prescence for the Network, but behind the scenes we’re sharing resources, support and encouragement for those local, third sector leaders joining up to the network.

Find out about attending our next meeting and what it takes to join up here.

Welcome to the Network