VCSSCamp 11

October 2025 marked the 11th VCSSCamp hosted by Superhighways.

VCSSCamp 11 was an unconference held on Monday 13th October 2025 at The Foundry in South London, enabling development workers from infrastructure organisations across London the opportunity to meet and discuss the topics that impact our work in supporting charities and community organisations in London.

The focus of discussions was on how we can use digital, data and tech for smarter working and service delivery. The ‘unconference’ approach (read more here) enabled the 33 participants to call the topics of interest to them and then to ‘vote with their feet’ and attend the sessions of most use to their work.

Unlike a traditional conference, there is no fixed agenda, no-one has selected the speakers before the event, no-one has decided what is an ‘important topic’ to cover, and no-one has been paid to deliver a ‘death by PowerPoint’ keynote speech!

The idea is that there would be opportunity to share our collective experience, resources and to find solutions together to common issues.

Agenda setting

clare organising timetable for vcss camp

We experimented with Mentimeter, asking people to discuss in groups what they would like to discuss and then reflect below before adding their answers.

We received a wide range of responses, which have been summarised below.

Topics called by participants

Practical uses of AI in VCS infrastructure work
Supporting small organisations to use AI safely and effectively
Improving sector surveys and dashboard use
Engaging grassroots and unconstituted groups
Developing organisation-wide communications strategies
Coordinating sector-wide reports with shared tools/templates
Supporting groups with outdated tech (e.g., Windows 11 issues)
Approaches and tools for analysing qualitative data
Using audio/video to capture lived experience
Building a social media presence with limited resources
Addressing community concerns about data sharing
Minimising cyber-attack risks and managing reputational damage
Creating shared training resources and sessions
Sharing newsletters and learning across London CVSs

What did people find most useful from the day?

I think it's just great to have this space to exchange information and raise issues in the sector. To actually step back and talk about resources, successes and challenges.

As an infrastructure organisation, it's really important to come and touch base and see what conversations everybody is having, and what all your different difficulties and needs are.

This kind of networking is always brilliant, and it's good to put some faces to CVSs that I only know in writing. It's good to get a more human side of that.