I’ve been in Manchester at the CIH Housing Conference all of this week so this week’s Have I Got Social Enterprise News For You is very much a rushed back of an envelope job. (No-one is going to be reading it anyway, as everyone seems to be at Glastonbury!)

I could write extensively about our time at the conference but in summary the main takeaways from the entire trip were: 1. Our Head of Comms Leonie is a surprisingly excellent karaoke rapper. 2. Manchester can provide a rather lively night out. 3. We need to up our game when it comes to exhibition stand decoration:

Next week’s edition should be a little less rushed, but for now, here’s the news:

@davemcglashan

• Every 6-8 weeks we run ‘Working Group’ events with volunteers from PwC, one of our corporate supporters. The evening is an opportunity for SSE students and Fellows to present a particular issue that they are facing within their organisation and then to work through the problem in a group with 3 or 4 PwC staff. (It could be feedback on a presentation that you are delivering, help with developing a marketing strategy or simply pitching and testing some new ideas).  The next session is next Tuesday (30th) from 6pm-7.30pm at Embankment Place, London.  If you’d like to come along, email me [email protected] and I’ll send you some more details. It’s free!

• Organisations whose primary purpose is to deliver services to women and girls can now apply for funding of £150,000 – £750,000 from Big Lottery Fund.  Expressions of interest need to be submitted by 16th July.

• Also available from BLF is the Making Local Woods Work project, which aims to ‘ people to create social enterprises in local unmanaged woodlands so they can grow into sustainable businesses’. It’s good to see Big Lottery branching out into this sort of thing (ba dum tish).

• London based social enterprise Account3 are hosting fifteen 3rd year students from Hanshin University in South Korea this July who would like to get involved with social enterprises while they are here. If you’d like an extra pair of hand this summer, email Toni or Cherifa at [email protected] or [email protected].

• We’ve got spaces left on our Kickstart Your Social Media course which takes place on Saturday 18th at SSE London. If you want to learn how to use social media more effectively for fundraising, campaigning and PR then make sure to come along.

• If you haven’t made it to Glastonbury don’t worry because SSE North West student Mike Cunningham is hosting Astral Coast, the Wirral’s biggest and best music festival on Saturday 11th July. The festival aims to ‘champion health and wellbeing; promote creativity as a pro active route to healthy living; challenge stigma; raise awareness and stimulate discussion & debate about mental health’.  Full details are available on their Facebook page.

• Google have extended their Google for Non Profits scheme to Scotland. It’s well worth applying for, particularly for the Adwords credit.

• If you happen to been in Old St over the next week, keep an eye out for ‘The Juiceologist‘, (Kalum Prescod) a recent graduate from our Frontline London programme. Kalum will be serving juices from his pop-up stand inside Old Street station.

• Hub Westminister are hosting ‘Hub Talks: Mission: Discover Your Campaigning Mindset’ with Michael Hayman and Nick Giles of Seven Hills. The event takes place on 6th July from 6.30pm to 8.30pm.

• Finally, it’s only two weeks until our 6-day Transition to Trading course kicks off. It will be epic. 

What’s on at SSE

• Transition to Trading, SSE London, starts 9th July
• Crowdfunding for Charities and Social Enterprises, SSE London, 16th July
• Kickstart Your Social Media Strategy, SSE London, 18th July
• Cool 10 Environmental Entrepreneurs, SSE East, starts 30th July