One of the strongest features of 2012 was the obvious drift of the voluntary services sector towards a government-inspired vision of contracted and sub-contracted welfare providers, modelled on private business styles and practices, or shoehorned into ‘social enterprise’. And with this has come a deafening silence in speaking out against the privation and injustice being visited upon our most vulnerable people and communities. In a gloomy, but convincing, review of 2012, Meta Zimmeck and Colin Rochester chart this downhill trend and remind us that behind the ranks of those lining up to ‘deliver’ government policy there is another world of voluntary action “… prophetic, vision led, reformist, independent of government.” 2013 promises to be an even worse year for the communities that voluntary action is intended to serve. How many will finally acknowledge that you can’t stop things you don’t like without resisting them?  Colin and Meta’s review – Another Grim Year for Voluntary Action – can be found on the Voluntary Action History Society’s website. Here you go – http://www.vahs.org.uk/2013/01/feature-1/