An invitation to talk about Urban Forum's future

Like a great number of organisations at the moment, including members, sources of funding previously relied on to support work have dried up and Urban Forum is facing financial difficulties. As a result, we no longer have the resources to deliver the range of services provided in the past - including research reports, briefings and events.

Although Urban Forum may soon not exist in its traditional form we still believe that there is an appetite amongst our members for:

• Information about new policies and issues that affect them
• Contact with other organisations like them to learn from each other's experiences
• Collaboration with other members to do things they find difficult doing alone
• Having some form of collective voice to decision-makers.

To respond to the difficulties we're all facing in the short-term and the opportunities we think are out there in the longer term we are developing a new structure. This will be based on helping members to work together and to share information with each other and the wider world. We think there is an opportunity to fundamentally change how we work and a key element of this will be supporting members to use social media to share information, network and collaborate.

We would like you to join us in thinking through our views and ideas on our future direction. To get you thinking here are some questions:

What do you value about being a member of Urban Forum and how can we hold onto this (and maybe even build on it) in times of austerity?

With less resources to produce information centrally how can we enable information exchange between members?

How far do you have an appetite for collaboration with other members (nationally, regionally, locally) and how can we make this happen?

Please email your thoughts and answers to the above to Nick Bird. In addition, we'll be asking you to comment via our Facebook page and on Twitter.

We value your input and look forward to hearing from you.