Was it worth it?

Last autumn (2007) a cohort of bright-eyed social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneur advisers sat in a room in an unfashionable part of Nottingham in some anticipation of what was to follow over the preceding six months. This was the start of the course for social enterprise leaders and advisers. After the obligatory stand up and say who you are session the group settled down to find out what we had signed up for.
 
Looking back across the year my main impression of the SE course is one of being part of a part time big brother show. Every session there would be fewer and fewer of us. When the ‘evictions’ settled down leaving a core of students the second round of diminishing returns was concerned with who would submit work for examination and who would not.

I am not entirely sure how many of the original cohort completed. Those that did not missed a golden opportunity. How often these days can one study for something worthwhile and have the fees supported automatically by being accepted on a funded course?  I am sure that anyone still paying off their student loans will appreciate the rarity of this opportunity.

Well, I finished and am glad to say that it was worth it. The funding of the course by GNP was vital to me being able to undertake the course. Without that support I would not have been able to afford the study. Cheers chaps.

It would be most interesting to hear what everyone else thought.
In reflective mood, Alan

Third Sector Recruitment Ltd – Could it happen ?

At a recent meeting at EMSSE a comment got me thinking about recruitment in the third sector and how it works ? From my limited experience popular channels seem to be

•  set days that the broadsheet papers (guardian) have ads for jobs.
• Also seems that networking or scanning internal vacancies listings at some of the bigger Social Enterprises / Charities seems to be popular. 

However, all seems quite undeveloped to me.

 Wonder what sources/websites other EMSEN members are aware of to find out about ops specifically for the third sector ? And could a third sector recruitment consultancy ever develop (or already exists) ?

My previous (dubious) experience of RC’s leads me to believe their overtly commercial motivations and moral base would’nt easily sit within the sector but wonder if these barriers could be overcome and someone with the skills would catch the vision!   As the awareness grows I wonder if a specialist Recruitment Consultancy for the third sector could emerge. Perhaps a high quality cost conscious service targeted for the sector similar to third sector media.  What do you think ?