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

New business live! is a FREE one day event for all east midlands start-up’s and businesses that are under 3 years old. 

Sponsored by Business link the day will offer over 30 seminars and presentations with Wayne Hemmingway talking about how he went from running a shoe stall to a multi million pound fashion company as well as 2 other headline speakers.

There will be industry experts on hand to give 1:1 advice for the 1000 delegates we are expecting, 100 exhibitors and the opportunity to network with local entrepreneurs and business owners.

It’s shaping up to be a fantastic day, we are adding exhibitors, speakers and seminars daily to our website so please keep looking at the website or email us at nbl@consortiumevents.co.uk to receive updates.

Book your exhibition space by visiting www.newbusinesslive.net or calling consortium event management Ltd on 0115 9622499

On a personal note, I was privileged enough to hear Wayne Hemmingway speak a few years ago, the chap is dynamo and a true inspiration for everyone either engaged in or thinking to engage in social enterprise. I urge you all to book for this early to avoid disappointment; especially as we all need a bit of a lift in January. – Alan -

Last night I attended the launch of Nottingham’s Creative Business Awards. The event was hosted by a spanking new casino of all places. Last year Area Four Records was shortlisted so I suppose its only natural that I attended this year’s bash.

This year I have left all conventional creativity behind. I have embraced the triple bottom line beloved of social enterprise culture. It hurts. Envelope stretching projects are no longer the norm. These days it’s below the bone costing, very little profit snf even less sense of the new, fun and “I don’t know, let’s find out together shall we?”

As a creative social entrepreneur all I ever want is to make work that both my client and I can be proud of. Working mostly in the V.C.O. sector has left me feeling that emotions like project ambition and project pride have given way to make do and pander. It is the difference “why and who” verses “what and how”. As a third sector media social enterprise we try to raise communications to be on a more strategic level; but to be met with constant micro management by people who are not interested in what is involved in delivery leaves me hankering for the shallow life I have put behind me.

The way I see it, you wouldn’t buy a dog and bark yourself, would you?

This by email recently…

“Dear Alan,
I am pleased to tell you that Third Sector Media has achieved the full emda Quality Assured standard. You can now log onto www.embrokerage.co.uk to view your star rating, and a summary of any brokered activity that occurs will appear in a table at the top of your homepage.”

Phew that’s a relief, I wonder how I dropped a star? Still, its nice to be scored the same as a McDonalds worker… Time will tell how handy this proves to be.
Alan

!STOP THE PRESS! (11/7/8)
I am now working through my first referral through this database so I suppose the stars can’t all be bad! – ACD

As discussions at the final learning session of the course highlighted, there is an issue with flagging up our expertise as social enterprise advisers to the people who are able to broker work to us.  It does seem a little strange to me that a wad of tax payers’ money can be thrown at getting us qualified but then we’re left to find our own way through the murky mists to find out how to make ourselves known to the people who need our services.

True, it should be down to our own initiative to acquire our own clients but when there is so much talk of braiding social enterprise support into the mainstream, surely there ought to be a quick and easy way of enabling them to find us????

So here’s what I understand to be the way to make this happen (no guarantees from me though)…

Step 1.  Get yourself registered on the East Midlands Brokerage Platform – www.embrokerage.co.uk.  Initial registration gets you on the radar for a randomised referral into clients (the system picks 3 appropriate suppliers each time a service is sought for, I understand).

Step 2. Follow through to become an approved brokerable provider for any grant-funded work – remember the SEBA grant??  The process isn’t too arduous as long as you can provide contact details of 5 happy clients to give you a reference, as I’m sure you can.

This is where it starts to confuse me…  there is no space on the form you fill in to say you have specialist expertise in social enterprise.  Why not is, and will probably remain, a mystery.  So you then need to go to… 

Step 3.  When you’ve been approved, let Lynette Daws from SEEM know.  My understanding is that Business Link will check with SEEM when they identify a social enterprise and that they will then be able to identify suitable providers.

This, guys, is simply my understanding as I write on Monday 17th March 2008.  Don’t blame me if it all changes tomorrow    Good luck.

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 ?

Third Sector Media have this month mostly been training. Last week we headed over to Derby to act as an “expert witness” for the East Midlands School for Social Entrepreneurs. A lively discussion ensued surrounding the reconciliation of personal motivation, commercial interests and social returns. This trinity of social enterprise has no easy answer, being inherently personal in its approach and the lack of prescribed methods for balancing the three drivers seemed to be a little problematic for the group. For us here at Third Sector Media this dilemma forms the base of our operations, finding the resolve will probably take us years but in the meantime we shall carry on helping VCO’s communicate.

Slightly off topic, it was good to be in the news last week (Nottingham Evening Post 29th  February 2008)

[START]

WEB HELP OFFER TO CHARITY GROUPS

A Non-profit organisation is offering help to charities who want an internet presence.

Third Sector Media, based at the Partnership Council in Gregory Boulevard, Hyson Green, provides community and voluntary organisations with professional website design.

Previously, such organisations had to settle for second best when it came to their website,

Figures show visitors to charity websites and voluntary organisations are booming with people twice as likely to seek voluntary opportunities online.

To find out more, contact Alan Carter-Davies on 0115 970 8200 or email info@thirdsectormedia.co.uk

[END]

It has been just shy of two weeks since I last posted on this blog about my customer journey with Business Link. A number of you have asked how it is going. Sadly, it isn’t. I haven’t heard a dickie bird since. Currently I am debating whether it is worth chasing or not, if I weren’t so busy……

In limbo,
Alan

Gone are the busy days of last week. Welcome to the even busier days of next. You may have noticed that this blog has had a recent face lift. The new image is of the Nottingham Eye. But more importantly the new name: East Midlands Social Enterprise Network.

We don’t know what this is yet. We do know however that there isn’t much about at the moment for SE’s and supporters to interact. So in the spirit of entrepreneurship we thought we’d better make a start. Where we go depends a lot on who engages and consensus. So if you are a social enterprise of have a healthy interest in supporting SE’s then it is easy to help to shape the future of this fledgling network.  All you have to do is nail your colours to the mast and get in touch – posting comments on this blog are a great way to ease into things!

Alan

This morning I met with my brand new Business Adviser, Richard. A jolly pleasant chap he is too. Richard managed to condense the opening spiel about the regional consolidation of the BL empire down to two whole minutes. He pointed out that what ever my previous dealings with BL may have been, now my customer journey should be an all new experience.

It is worth noting we did spend a bit of time discussing the professionalisation of the business advice industry paying particular attention to the qualification of advisers. Richard seemed to be under the impression that SFEDI assessment would see him through. Of course this is a debate that is currently running, and of particular interest to the adviser readers of this blog.

The chap was very efficient in outlaying the practicalities of three different funding options. As a budding SE, Third Sector Media should have no problems tapping into the SEBA grant discussed earlier in this blog. However, there may be a difficulty engaging in the oft quoted Business Transition grant. The number of hoops required may make the transition grant an unattractive proposition. There is however a new business development grant unlocked through membership of the e-Business club. This seems to offer capital and revenue funding up to 50%. Four half price laptops fully loaded seems worth a bit of form filling and hoop jumping to us so I shall explore and keep you all posted.

As ever, I would urge all readers of this blog to apply for the SEBA grant, we can then sped a happy six months hiring each other as bona fide SE’s whilst spending someone else’s money. What better reason to engage in a network?

Optimistic
Alan