Adult Learners’ Week

Posted on by

 

For those of you who didn’t know, next week is Adult Learners’ Week (20th-26th May)

Adult Learners’ Week is the UK’s largest celebration of
learning. It promotes education and training for adults, provides access to
information and guidance, motivates more and different adults to participate in
learning and celebrates the learning achievements of adults.

Co-ordinated
by NIACE, the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, the Week is
supported by the Department for Education and Skills and the European Social
Fund with additional support from learndirect and Ofcom.

Adult Learners’
Week is an opportunity for all organisations that offer any form of adult
learning activity to either present a special promotional activity, or to label
their existing learning activities as ‘Adult Learners Week’
activities.

The Adult Learners’ Week planning guide gives you all you
need to know about making your event a success, and can be downloaded from www.alw.org.uk.

Edge Upstarts….and Enterprising Solutions

Posted on by

SSE was at the Edge Upstarts Awards in London last night. Congratulations to all the winners and nominees: an impressive line-up, and some very well-deserved recognition. You can see the full list of winners here. Big winners on the night were Training for Life which was ‘Social Enterprise of the Year’, and their Hoxton Apprentice restaurant was named ‘Social Enterprise Team of the Year’. Their chief executive Gordon D’Silva missed out on a clean sweep (the ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ went to Safia Minney, the founder of fair trade fashion outfit, People Tree ) but, as I put it to him, in Oscar terms, Best Picture and Best Cast (OK, work with me here) was a good return, even if Best Director wasn’t forthcoming…panerai imitation

Ed Miliband also made his first appearance as Minister for the Third Sector, and spoke well, particularly (as he acknowledged), it was only his third full day in the job. Full marks also to the team from the Edge Foundation, several of whom were there last night. Not only were the Upstarts Awards a rousing success, but they have also backed London for the WorldSkills games in 2011, which has indeed been won for the capital (and announced in a front-page ad in the Guardian this morning). SSE left filled with optimism at their determination to promote practical learning and skills, which mirrors our own belief in the importance of action learning / learning-by-doing.

Finally, just to mention that, as we move from one set of awards to the next, the Enterprising Solutions Awards are now accepting nominations….

 

Scaling your replicable pilot franchise

Posted on by

In the world of social enterprise, a consistent mantra is the need to replicate, franchise, scale up…which somewhat overlooks the fact that some social entrepreneur-led organisations and initiatives are fit to their particular sphere or community….and nowhere else. Some projects are best kept at a certain scale (a size or catchment they may have been shaped to) and, also, to a certain duration (has anyone thought through what happens if every new project is eternally sustainable?).

Couple of interesting things worth a look in this context.

– An online discussion about "Why you shouldn’t scale up", in relation to E. F. Schumacher’s seminal "Small is Beautiful" concept; particularly interesting is the concept of scaling up ‘strategies or ideas’, rather than necessarily scaling up organisations and organisational frameworks….

– CAN’s new Pilot toolkit, which "takes you through three key stages of planning, monitoring and evaluating, providing the room and space for all the key players in your organization to contribute to its success"; you can download the Guide here and the Project Map here (both pdfs). It’s an interesting tool which SSE fed into…and could be used in various ways. It came out of their Beanstalk programme, which was set up to focus on social franchising, but widened to more general replication…..

– Also see an article about a (UK) social franchise that failed in Stanford Social Innovation Review: An Enterprising Failure (pdf); [see here for a brief description of Paul Harrod, one of the founders of the social franchise, Aspire, running a seminar in Oxford recently]

This topic is of interest to SSE not only because we are a social franchise (for various reasons: to avoid re-inventing the wheel; to bring expertise and experience to bear; to create genuine partnerships with local and regional organisations; to avoid parachuting in people from outside the area; to create a strong and vibrant network etc.), but also because it is a question that many of our students and fellows face….how to have the greatest impact / be most effective? Lean and mean, large and powerful? Or small and beautiful….

Mapping the impact

Posted on by

As our evaluation process goes on with NEF, we’ve also been looking at some other ways of (literally) mapping the impact of SSE and that of its Fellows….I’ve been playing around with Wayfaring which is a neat tool (Platial is similar). I’ve trialled it by doing a map of where there are (or have been) SSE programmes in the UK. Check out the map.

It’s quite an interesting tool, so I’m hopeful we can use it to do the same for Fellows / Students, so that we can see all the different places that a) they are based and b) they have an impact….

Cabinet reshuffle

Posted on by

In reaction to yesterday’s local elections (sadly, the marvellously named Martin Bleach of the Green Party failed to win a seat in my ward), Tony Blair has re-shuffled his pack, and in some style too. Key ones for social entrepreneurs include:

John Reid taking over at the Home Office
Ruth Kelly in charge of Communities/Local Government
Alan Johnson to Education
David Miliband to Environment

See the full breakdown of all the various moves backwards, forwards and sideways…

UPDATE: OK, buried in the detail is more interesting stuff….

– Hilary Armstrong is Cabinet Minister for Social Exclusion (in Cabinet Office) which will have remit over volutnary and community sector + social enterprises….trying to cut across silos in government departments, I guess. Beneath her is rising star Ed Miliband, who is the new voluntary sector minister.

– Also, the Active Communities Directorate (of civic renewal / communities fame) is moved, as long promised, to merge with what was the ODPM, but is now the DCLG (if it keeps the name of Department of Communities and Local Government), so will also, as with all neighbourhood renewal / regeneration stuff, be under the remit of Ruth Kelly….

– Finally, just to note that Alun Michael, the DTI minister with responsibility for social enterprise, has lost his post

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE:

– Jonathan Bland puts the Social Enterprise Coalition’s point of view across in the Times about the Social Enterprise brief’s move from DTI to the Cabinet Office. Welcomes the ability of said Cabinet Office to cut across all government departments, whilst emphasising the need to focus on the ‘business’ aspect of social enterprise and (in relation to this), the important role that Regional Development Agencies will play over the next few years….