Mar 17 2013

£4000 to Start a Social Enterprise – SSE comes to the West Midlands

The School for Social Enterprise (SSE) is launching in the West Midlands and only has two weeks to go!

SSE West Midlands are currently recruiting social entrepreneurs and also want to see organisations / support providers that are interested or want to find out more.

Here’s the detail from our friends at SSE

Things are moving fast now for the new school and we have decided to hold some taster sessions for potential students to find out a little more about the school and what we offer them during the upcoming Lloyds West Midlands SSE course (www.yourideastartshere.co.uk) in the West Midlands.

Come and meet us at the following venues:-

Wednesday the 20^th March — The Renewal Family Centre, Vulcan Road, Solihull, B91 2JY 17.30 – 19.30*
Monday the 25^th March — Room 201 UCB Building, Colmore Row, Birmingham, B3 2AP 14.30 – 16.30*
Wednesday the 27^th of March — Goldmine Centre, The Vine Trust, 33 Lower Hall Lane, Walsall WS1 1RR 17.30 – 19.30*

*As this is a new school to the region we have also booked the venues for a three hour session prior to the taster sessions to enable interested parties (eg. established social entrepreneurs, social enterprise and business advisers, local authorities, charities and third sector organisations etc) to just drop in and find out more about the school.

For further details please see the attached flyer

Jan 16 2013

Social Enterprise Start up and Business Development Support – Birmingham

The Enterprise catalyst Project

I recently started working on the Enterprise catalyst project with Digbeth Trust. The project provides intensive support to individuals who want to start a social enterprise and even has some seed funding to get the idea going.

In addition the project helps and grows existing businesses in the area with the possibility of support with business development grants of up to £10k.

“The project titled Enterprise Catalyst, seeks to raise entrepreneurial levels to help new businesses get started, and offers customised enterprise coaching and financial assistance (where required).”

A mentoring and support service is also available to existing businesses ensuring sustainable growth.

To be eligible for the programme you must be:

a business start-up – resident within the qualifying wards*
an existing business – based within the qualifying wards*

Please note that this is a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) programme, and as such we cannot support retail activity. Existing retail businesses that wish to diversify into other markets may be eligible for support.

To discuss your business idea or check eligibility please call 0121 675 7580.

*List of qualifying wards:

Aston
Bordesley Green
Hodge Hill
Ladywood
Lozells and East Handsworth
Moseley and Kings Heath
Nechells
Soho
South Yardley
Sparkbrook
Springfield
Washwood Heath

Don’t miss the opportunity, get in touch today! Who now’s you may even get some free business support delivered by me as part of the project [there are others working on the programme too]

Nov 2 2012

Charitable Incorporated Organisation – update

Just a quick post to update you all on the Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) legal structure. Interestingly I was discussing this as an option with a client the other day, but advised him to ‘not hold his breath’, as it had been talked about for years and seemed to be at a standstill.

However, Anthony Collins Solicitors, have recently updated us and noted that two key pieces of legislation have been passed in October which suggest that the CIO structure may be accepting its first applications ‘by the end of this year’.

If you would like to find out a little more then Anthony Collins have an update here