Umbrella body of community groups in the Midlands meets in Offaly

PPN staff and representatives from the Secretariats were in attendance from counties Offaly, Kildare, Laois, Longford, Meath and Westmeath.

There were a number of presentations on the night representing the flavour of activities under the PPN remit

• Promoting Volunteering: Opportunities & Challenges

• A review of Environmental activities 2023

• Establishing Linkage Groups to inform PPN Representatives on a broad range of Committees and boards.

• Annual Report on JPC activities 2023.

This meeting is held quarterly. It is a great opportunity where PPN’s network, share information and learn from each others experiences in the midland region.

This week marks the 10^th anniversary since the Public Participation Networks (PPN) were enshrined into law under the 2014 Local Government Act replacing the Community and Voluntary Fora as the main community voice and leadership model in each county.

The PPN is the Network of community and voluntary groups in each county.,

There are 31 PPN ‘s in Ireland one in each of the 31 local authorities. This equates to 18,000 plus member groups across the country.

In Offaly there are 650 groups with membership of the PPN that represent community and voluntary, social inclusion and environmental activities throughout the county.

Membership of the PPN is free of charge and open to not for profit groups.

Three key areas of work

• Information sharing and networking

• Capacity building

• Informing and directing local and national policy formation