News & Events

Join our new Forum!
Join the new BMKSEN forum - meet other like minded people interested in or even running successful Social Enterprises!
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Free business support!
Are you running a Social Enterprise? Thinking of setting one up? If you need commercial input and direction take advantage of FREE one to one advice and support! This is a special partnership between Business Link, Buckinghamshire Community Action and BMKSEN.
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Olympics benefit?
A new report suggests Social Enterprises have an opportunity to bid for contracts worth up to half a billion pounds for the 2012 Olympics.
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Forthcoming Social Enterprise Events

28th and 29th November 2007 - National Rural Social Enterprise Conference 2007

The National Rural Social Enterprise Conference is due to be held on 28th and 29th November 2007 at the Hinxton Hall, the Wellcome Trust Conference Centre in Cambridgeshire. This year conference will look at Inspiring Rural Communities by using social enterprise approaches to rural development. For further information on how to participate as a delegate, exhibitor or speaker, please contact Mike Perry on 01993 810730.


May to August - SocialIMPact measurement for LocalEconomies – SIMPLE programme

What is the programme about?
SIMPLE is an integrated impact assessment and training project aimed at providing social enterprises and voluntary organisations in the South East with the skills and processes needed to evaluate their social outcomes.

Why do you need to do this?
Articulating your added value in a widely recognisable format will open up opportunities for your social enterprise to work with other organisations keen to demonstrate their own social responsibility criteria. This will result in more prospects for work via:

  • Private sector Corporate Social Responsibility departments
  • Best Value public sector procurement contracts
  • Grant finance or funding organisations

Also, demonstrating your social impact will also help your staff, board and customers to see clearly how their input makes a positive difference, contributing to increased motivation and efficiency.

How will it work?
Following an initial needs analysis of participant organisations to ensure suitability of a specially selected social impact measurement toolkit, SIMPLE is a 3 day programme in which social enterprise managers will be trained on how to adopt the toolkit for use in their business. Between sessions, participants will have access to implementation support. On completion of the course, participants will have achieved a Level 5 Vocationally Related Qualification (VRQ 5).

What will be required of you?

  • A desire to internalise social impact measurement systems into your business
  • Buy in across the organisation, from senior management to junior administration
  • A desire to learn and share experience with colleagues and peers
  • Commitment to 21 hours of training plus additional ‘homework’
  • Course fees

Where and when?
Training will be delivered in 3 sessions between May and August 2007, across the South East Region at a venue near you. The cost of the training, subsidised by SEEDA and ESF Co-financing, is £350per social enterprise or voluntary organisation.

What do you need to do next?
Register by filling in the application form below and sending a signed copy to:

Mr Robin Harris
Social Enterprise London
3rd Floor Downstream Building
1 London Bridge
London
SE1 9BG

Once you have been accepted onto the course we will be in contact to arrange a meeting to discuss your organisation’s needs in terms of performance indicators. In the mean time, if you have any questions regarding the course, or social impact measurement in general, please call Robin Harris on 020 7022 1926.

June to October - South East Rural Towns Partnership Skills and Knowledge Exchange Programme 2007

Funded by SEEDA, the Skills and Knowledge Exchange programme is a combined programme of practical case studies, illustrating best practice and training seminars for town partnerships and practitioners working in small rural towns in the South East.

Four seminars have already been delivered around the region and they have effectively utilised the knowledge and experience of successful local partnerships, to improve the capacity of towns to create vibrant sustainable communities and spread good practice. The material developed for these training sessions include a Good Practice & Training Folder which provides a number of good practice case studies and supporting materials for each training session.

Date Theme Host Town
Tuesday 26th June 2007 Early Stages Uckfield, East Sussex
Tuesday 10th July 2007 Later Days Whitchurch, Hampshire
Tuesday 9th October 2007 Early Stages New Milton, Hampshire
Tuesday 16th October 2007 Later Days Wolverton, Buckinghamshire

To register for any of these events, please complete the registration form from the SERTP website and send a cheque payable to Action for Market Towns for £10.00 to:

Action for Market Towns
PO Box 299
Bury St Edmunds,
Suffolk
IP33 1UU

For further information contact robyn.woronka@towns.org.uk or 0777 196 2374 or visit www.setowns.org.uk.

You can download the application form and read more details here.