1. “Never-Never land?” Critical Success Factors of Infrastructure – Skills, Knowledge and Confidence

2. Aims of Presentation ‘my hearties’… The use of ‘Peter Pan’: metaphor, imagination and reality What is St Helens ‘Nuts and Bolts’ project? Research methodology ‘Critical success factors’: a process not an end product Where are we?: progression, stagnation and failing

3. Research Methodology: The pirate has arrived! Rationale: “Nuts & Bolts” St Helens CVS in October 2007 obtained Big Lottery funding with University of Liverpool providing research evaluation of project - 4 year longitudinal research study: tracking change process and ‘what works’ 120 organisations in St Helens (different sizes, nature, scope, and resources) Methodology: ‘Narrative Tapping’ and ‘Tracking Narrative’ Diverse methodology: *Ongoing extensive literature search and review *Ongoing in-depth and semi-structured interviews (6 case studies) *Questionnaire (120 organisations with 44% response rate) *Focus groups (4 groups consisting of at least 8 organisations)

4. Preliminary Findings: Some Thematic Success Factors – Tinkerbell’s answers “Committee Structures” “Leadership” “Business Plans” “Funding” “Time” “Training” “Partnerships”

5. Group Discussion of Infrastructure: Progression, Stagnation and Failing (P.S.F)? Progression (the character of Wendy) = encouragement and focus on moving forward Stagnation (the character of Captain Hook) = hinders change, hostile and very self centred Failing (the character of Peter Pan) = no growth and no development, lacks skills and confidence Q. How does your CVS assist in these 3 areas? How do you measure P, S, F? If not, how can you measure P,S,F?