Social Enterprise Action Day 2010
We delivered our first successful Social Enterprise Action Day (SEAD) on 18th November 2010. The high quality learning event attracted a range of new and established social enterprises from the North West.
"The 'Winning public contracts' session very good, I was very impressed with content. The facilitator had undertaken some research about my social enterprise prior to the event and found a relevant funding opportunity. This was used as a case study during the session".
Rose Marley, Director, Motiv CIC
The day was not just about social entrepreneurs’ public sector commissioners also had an opportunity to meet social entrepreneurs and learn from each other. The attendance from the public sector was a key to the success of SEAD as improving relationships with commissioners will become and increasing priority for social enterprises.
Core activities included:
• Training on effective networking by private sector leaders
• 6 practical enterprise growth workshops moving from “Ideas generation” to “Scaling up” run by cross-industry experts
• A toolkit, following the 5 growth themes, explored in the workshops that can be implemented post action day
• A commissioners work-stream focussing on intelligent commissioning
• A social innovation panel – comprising commissioners, social entrepreneurs, private sector and academics. The panel will look at unemployment for 2 deprived neighbourhoods in Manchester with the focus on how social enterprise can deliver the service solution
• A Question and Answer session for Community Interest Companies (CICs) led by the CIC Regulator Sara Bugress
How to win commissions
Vanessa Augustus, Founder of the Social Solutions Academy gave a presentation on 'How to win commissions' to students from Manchester Business School to advise on the key aspects of developing and supporting social enterprises. The presentation was delivered on Social Enterprise Day, as part of Global Entrepreneurship week 16-20 November 2009.
"Vanessa was a key presenter at our very first Social Enterprise Symposium at the university producing at fairly short notice an excellent presentation that was both informative and interesting. Following an expression of my desire to make the event bigger and better next year, Vanessa went from presenter to partner. We are know working hard to make that happen. Vanessa's drive and list of contacts is proving invaluable and I have no doubt that the conference in November 2010 will be a fantastic success for all concerned".
Dr Martin Henery, Programme Director – MSc.Enterprise, Manchester Enterprise Centre
Future 100 Networking Event
After delivering a presentation to some budding social entrepreneurs in Manchester, Vanessa Augustus, Founder of the Social Solution s Academy attended the Future 100 networking event held by Striding Out in London.
London is a long way for any Manchester based social entrepreneur to travel for one day, but Vanessa knew it would be worth it. The high profile event provided opportunities to network with the other 99 young social entrepreneurs highlighted on the list www.future100.co.uk. Inspirational stories were shared by some of the award winners, to include a 2008 winner who pointed out how the recognition has helped to build on her success during 2009.
Vanessa also had the chance to thank Heather Wilkinson, Founder of Striding Out in person and to find out more about the support she will be able to access as one of the Future 100 over the next year. The networking session was well attended and the work of the Social Solutions Academy was showcased to other guests representing the Cabinet Office, Sunlight Development Trust and the Third Sector Coalition.
Picture: (left to right) Heather Wilkinson, Founder of Striding Out and Vanessa Augustus, Social Solutions Academy
Gorton Lady meets Lord to build “Big Society”
Social entrepreneur, Vanessa Augustus met with Lord Nat Wei, the government’s chief advisor on “Big Society”, on 16 July 2010 to share ideas about how Big Society can happen. The event was hosted by the Commission for the New Economy to introduce Lord Wei to a select group of Greater Manchester's social entrepreneurs and change makers.
Lord Wei is firmly behind social enterprises and sees them as a means to develop leadership within the community, and enable local people to define their own services. He also talked about simplified commissioning with the ultimate long term vision to be a move to citizen based commissioning. Social Solutions Academy is building a reputation as a dynamic social innovation forum and is the embodiment of this “Big Society” concept.
Lord Wei said of Social Solutions Academy “This is an example of innovative social participation”, he went on to say “We are looking for opportunities to join up existing ideas and enterprises within communities. The Government ultimately wants to enable citizens to take power for themselves.” He also talked about the government’s plans for the Big Bank whereby funds will be released from dormant accounts administered by credit unions and cooperatives, who will work with existing networks to find projects that need to be scaled up.
Words by Tamsin Feilden-Providis Group www.provadisgroup.com
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