Social Enterprise Works

By developing a sustainable income base through trading you can take full control of your organisation’s future.

This programme offers you the business skills to help you generate income through trading. You will be able to identify potential sources of income generation and develop a business plan for your organisation.

Over the course of three group-training sessions (total 15 hours), you will be able to apply the learning to your organisations development and draw on the support and experience of a cohort of 5-7 organisations. Sessions will cover the following subjects:

• Identify the idea – scoping out the broad idea
• Research the idea – financing, market research
• Implement the idea - developing a business plan, setting up systems

Three hours of adviser coaching time is offered to help you apply your learning between sessions.

The charge for this programme using a train to gain grant for 50% is £250

Please complete the Business skills for generating income booking form and return to sam@socialenterpriseworks.org

5^th June and 17^th June, 2.00 – 4.30pm, Social Enterprise Works, Bristol

Do you need to step back and review where your organisation is and how it’s doing? Have you heard about performance improvement, but not benefited from support available to get started? Do you need quality assurance?

Then this short seminar will help. It aims to provide an overview of the C3Perform approach to improving performance and the Social Enterprise Works BenchLearning website.

The seminar will;

• Introduce the C3Perform approach and toolkit and BenchLearnng website.
• Describe experiences of Bristol based organisations in improving the way they work
• Outline what the benefits might be for your organisation
• Explain how you can get started on using the tools to improve your performance, either independently or using the grants to pay for facilitation support from Social Enterprise Works

The seminar will be useful for organisations that have attended C3 events before as well as organisations coming into contact with performance improvement for the first time.

Participants will receive a C3Perform toolkit.

Performance Improvement Seminar booking form

The C3Perform approach to improving performance - A one-day training course for advisers working with third sector organisations.

Next training course will be held in June 2008, date to be confirmed.

Being able to demonstrate performance/quality is increasingly important for third sector organisations.

The C3Perform tools offer a simple and time efficient approach to improving performance. Through a simple process of self-assessment and action planning, the tools aim to help organisations get started on a journey of performance improvement.

This one-day course is designed for advisers working with third sector organisations. It offers an opportunity to learn about and try out the innovative C3Perform self-assessment tools so that you can advise or support third sector organisations through a process of performance improvement.

The course aims to

• Introduce participants to the principles of performance improvement

• Familiarise participants with the three C3Perform self-assessment tools and associated action-planning methods.

• Enable participants to confidently use C3 performance improvement tools to support organisations through a process of performance improvement.

The course is participative and experiential in nature, drawing on many of the methods and tools that make up the C3Perform approach.

One previous participant said

‘What a great day. The day allowed me to really understand how it would feel to facilitate a performance improvement process with my clients and also to empathise with how clients would experience it. Very thought provoking. The C3Perform toolkit looks good too - well constructed, well supported and appropriate to the sector’ Amanda Boyd-McLaughlin, Cherry D

The course is delivered by advisers Stuart Griffin and David Mackenzie who have been working to develop and trial the approach and tools as part of the C3Partnership project. (more…)

Action learning sets for Third Sector Leaders

Action learning sets are a very powerful tool for developing leadership skills and positively transforming the way you work for the benefit of your organisation.

Grants for 50% of the cost of a new action learning set starting over the summer can be accessed through Train to Gain.

Action learning sets involve a small group of people employed in similar roles, working together over a period of six months to explore issues/problems within their working environment in order to develop long-term solutions.

The success of action learning sets comes from the rare opportunity that they offer you to step out of your usual work environment to reflect on issues and, with the input of people working in similar roles, identify time-focused actions. This combination stimulates a more creative form of problem solving and encourages participants to identify enduring solutions which get to the heart of the matter.

A previous participant said ‘Not receiving supervision or line management isn’t helpful for my development, but being able to take issues to the set has been invaluable as it has given me the opportunity to work through a problem with a group of competent successful people whose opinions I trust and value.’

The make –up of the set is important. Working with people in similar roles means that in addition to learning from discussing issues affecting you, you will also learn from discussion of others’ issues.

What do we mean by leaders?

Leaders may be board chairpersons or senior executive officers of organisations of whatever size. We do not expect you to have any particular qualification or experience but simply that you are responsible for making decisions that develop or drive an organisation forward. We recognise that leaders are often isolated and can benefit greatly from this kind of collaborative working.

Programme outline

The programme starts in July 2008 and runs through to December 2008 (start date to be confirmed). You’ll join a learning set with between 5 and 7 other members and a facilitator. The set will meet once a month for six months. Sessions will last for between four and five hours. You and other set members will focus on issues of relevance in your work.

Cost and application details

Grants for 50% of the cost of a new action learning set starting over the summer can be accessed through Train to Gain. This brings the cost for places on this programme to £150 per set member.

Please see the Action learning sets application pack for further details and complete the application form by 13th June ‘08. Contact Stuart on 0117 9070080 or stuart@socialenterpriseworks.org for a chat about how the sets will work to find out whether they are right for you.

Thursday 3rd July at 10am – 3.30pm at CEED, Ujima House, 97-107 Wilder Street, St Paul’s, Bristol, BS2 8QU

Do you need hints and tips for successful tendering?

Then book onto this workshop, which will:

• Set out legislation and the tendering process

• Explain how tenders are scored

• Offer numerous hints and tips for successful tendering

Cost:
£55 per participant from voluntary, community and social enterprise sector
£110 per participant from statutory sector

Please click on the flyer to get booking details.

BDA is delivering a variety of trainings with partners in June 2008. BDA have details to their training programme available at www.blackdeva.org.uk

Voscur have details of their new spring training programme available at www.voscur.org/training