VODG Marketing & Communications Professional Network Meeting | September 2025

The next meeting of the Marketing and Communications professional network is open for booking! 

We are delighted to welcome to the network Peter Gilheany of Forster Communications. Peter is skilled in making complex and/or controversial topics accessible and compelling and has extensive campaigning experience. He will be speaking about strategic communications, in particular building trust in a sector that has vulnerable people at its centre.

September is a busy month for a lot of people, so we have two very pertinent discussion topics on this agenda. First of all we will be discussing how to get the best return on the investment of your time and budget. Are there tools you use to steamline processes? Methods of manging tasks to increase efficiency? Please come along to share your best tools and techniques with your peers. And in the spirit of maximising ROI, this is also an opportunity for you to network with other members in a small group discussion setting.

Next we will take a step back from the sometimes stressful day-to-day reality of managing a busy marketing department and consider the wellbeing of yourself and your team. We will provide prompts and tools to enable members to consider the causes of workplace stress and strategies to manage it, working towards a positive contribution to personal wellbeing and increased job satisfaction and productivity for everyone in your team.

Finally we have a short session on NLA Licesencing. This will set the scene for the December meeting when we have a speaker on this and other regulatory topics. At this meeting we will have the chance to share experiences and knoweldge of this topic.

Book your place today to avoid missing these exciting sessions.

Speakers

Peter Gilheany

Peter Gilheany

Director, Forster Communications

Sarah Woodhouse

Sarah Woodhouse

Head of Policy and Influencing, Voluntary Organisations Disability Group

Draft Programme

14.00

VODG Welcome and Housekeeping

Sue Howarth, Membership and Marketing Officer, VODG

14.05

Introductions

Co-chairs

14.10

Strategic communications

Peter Gilheany, Director at Forster Communications

14.40

Networking with the theme of getting the best ROI from your time

Breakout room discussion

15.10

Self and team wellbeing

Breakout room discussion

15.25 NLA Lisencing - initial discussion Sarah Woodhouse, Director of Policay and Influencing, VODG

15.40

Topics for future meetings

VODG co-chairs

15.55

Final Roundup

Sue Howarth, Membership and Marketing Officer, VODG

16.00

End

 

Accessibility  

Please note, should you have any accessibility requirements, we will do our best to make necessary arrangements to support you; however, we may require up to four weeks notice, so please list your requirements on the booking form. Closed captions are used as standard in online meetings. If you have any questions, please email [email protected].

Join the Marketing & Communications Professional Network

The Marketing & Communications network provides colleagues a secure space to discuss pertinent issues and topics via our online forum, to upload documents and to view the lastest network events. 

6 MARKET COMMS ICON FINAL.jpg

Marketing and Communications

Members (208) Discussions (34)

The VODG marketing and communications professional network welcomes MarComms professionals from amongst our membership.

VODG Marketing & Communications Network Co-chairs

Lizzie Courtney

Lizzie Courtney

Head of Brand, External Communications and Marketing, Hft

Kat Akass

Kat Akass

Head of Marketing, Digital and Communications, SeeAbility

Alison Freestone

Alison Freestone

Communications Manager, Thera