Tendring Community Voluntary Services (TCVS) is an umbrella organisation for the voluntary sector. It is run by the community for the community and to date has 147 member charities. Members can access support, information and advice about everything to do with running a charity such as producing a constitution, registration with the Charity Commission, giving grants, finding trustees, running an event, promoting volunteering at its Volunteers Awards Evening held every year at the Town Hall. TCVS has a range of equipment for hire including a laptop and projector (for that all-important presentation), flip chart, digital camera, and exhibition boards which are all free to charities. Meeting rooms, a counselling room, offices and Sams Hall are also available for hire.

Voluntary groups can meet together every month at the Voluntary Sector Forum to exchange information about each others' work over coffee and biscuits, at TCVS's headquarters in Sams Hall. TCVS's Community Development Project hosts free coffee mornings with internet and computer support every week in Walton, Dovercourt and Clacton and the 'IT in the Community' has ensured that Community Centres in St. Osyth, Jaywick, Walton, Harwich and Manningtree have had free computers and internet installed for the benefit of local people.

TCVS hosts the TOPIC (Tendring Older People's Information Centre) project which has recently launched the one stop shop for older people in Tendring http://www.60plustendring.co.uk/ and the Neighbourhood Training Programme enabling local groups and volunteers to access top quality training which is specifically geared to their needs.

When a group becomes a member of TCVS it receives a monthly newsletter packed with information about national and local information exclusively for the voluntary sector. It can hire the Beach Hut situated at a prime site on Clacton's seafront, access training and seminars such as The Big Lottery and 'Meet the Funders', be invited to participate in Community Planning with the Local Authority and the Primary Care Trust and generally become an integral part of Tendring's diverse community. If you are reading this and are a volunteer (or would like to be) or a committee member of a local community group, go to http://www.tendringcvs.org.uk/ , sign up for membership and access the gateway into Tendring's thriving voluntary community.