It’s all happening today, Thursday, 16th October. Locally, at 12noon Kerry Volunteer Centre launched its new website for to support Volunteering and Community and Voluntary Groups in Kerry, www.volunteerkerry.ie whilst nationally, Ireland’s Charities Regulatory Authority (CRA) has been established by Ministerial Order under the terms of the Charities Act 2009. The CRA has set out its functions and operations on its new website www.charitiesregulatoryauthority.ie also launched today.
Locally, the launch of the newly designed website marks an exciting new era for local Volunteering. Its launch by Kerry Volunteer Centre will be accompanied by the publication of weekly blogs and monthly electronic newsletter on all matters related to Volunteering and impacting Community and Voluntary Groups in Kerry. Such as news about the national launch of the Charities Regulatory Authority.
The new Authority will operate as an independent regulator for the charity sector and has today commenced the process of establishing the public register of all Irish charities. As such all organisations in Kerry that currently have a CHY number assigned by the Revenue can expect to receive communication from the Charities Regulatory Authority in the coming weeks, to confirm their particularities and join the public register of Charities . Those organisations who present themselves to the public as charities but do not have a CHY number will need to be mindful of the need to take initial steps towards registration, these steps are clarified by the Charities Regulatory Authority’s on its new website www.charitiesregulatoryauthority.ie launched today also.
Kerry Volunteer Centre has been working proactively over the last number of years and in 2014 to encourage and enable awareness of the Charities Act. Geraldine advised that ‘ Kerry Volunteer Centre wishes to ensure that charities and their volunteer trustees in Kerry, regardless of their distance from Dublin, smallness of size and limited resources, have real opportunities to be informed of the Charities Act and compliant with the CRA’. As such the Volunteer Centre has issued an invitation to the Charities Regulator to deliver a briefing session on for small and medium based Charities on the CRA in Kerry in the coming months and will be delivering training on the Charities Act in 2015. Details of which will be advised to you and advertised on our new website’s training section, www.volunteerkerry.ie
