SEWM events update
Posted on 23 June 2010
A busy end to last week, for me, with three very different events in rapid succession, starting with Wednesday’s trip to Enta in Birmingham for Regional Action West Midlands “Heads Up on Health”. This was a follow-up meeting to the original “Heads Up on Health” conference where we heard from Elizabeth Buggins, Chair of the West Midlands Strategic Health Authority and considered the factors inhibiting social enterprises and other Third Sector Organisations delivering health contracts.
Tom Elkins of Compact Voice explained the key points of the Compact and the Advocacy role of Compact Voice so that even I could understand it, if you are delivering public services I recommend: http://www.compactvoice.org.uk/. They will be considering a mechanism to allow third sector organisations to raise issues and concerns anonymously as a result of this session, as feedback from the floor indicated that many organisations are reluctant to raise concerns for fear of repercussions. Elaine Russell (a Commissioner with BEN PCT) gave some great tips on how not to tender for contracts and gave a real understanding of the challenges facing commissioners every day.
Thursday morning found me arriving early at the Botanical Gardens in sunny Edgbaston, as, inexplicably in that part of the world, there were clear roads. When I started assembling my stand I was glad of the extra time as I found myself entirely bamboozled by the mechanism and had to be rescued. Other than that it was a great day starting with a meeting of the West Midlands National Federation of Enterprise Agencies kicked off by CE, George Derbyshire’s thought-provoking views on the future of business support including the dangers of a support arrangement which purports to spot high-growth businesses during start-up, and the revelation that fewer than half of the enterprises which close in their first 3 years do so because of financial difficulties.
Gill Hamer of Business Link West Midlands (BLWM) spoke about partnership working, a topic of particular interest to those of us involved in specialist support for social enterprise, as was her stating that BLWM needs to do more outreach work to engage with SE – all dependent on funding, of course.
News that BLWM have started a programme of engagement with Local Authorities can perhaps be read as pre-empting an announcement on how Business Link services will be delivered in the future.
The afternoon saw BES’s annual awards ceremony for business advisers in the region. Congratulations to all the shortlisted nominees, any one of whom would have been a deserving winner. Nick Wilson of Coventry & Warwickshire CDA was voted social enterprise adviser of the year in what was a hotly contested category, while Emma Kemshall of Walsall Endeavours was voted best Adviser for Young People.
Melanie Mills was due to take part in the panel to judge the overall winner but as she was unfortunate enough to catch the traffic I’d avoided, I was honoured to join the judging panel which voted Julie Wilson of Growing Rural Enterprise the overall winner. When I’ve heard judges say, “it was a tough decision” in the past, I’ve never believed it, but it really was a full and frank discussion with most of us changing our mind at least once!
To end the week, Rupinder and I went to Craven Arms for the Inspire Shropshire event at the Craven Arms Community Centre, which I was delighted to see, has a huge amount going on and was proudly described to me as “the heart of the community”.
The speakers for the day were quite diverse, including John Iles of the Wyre Community Land Trust, who took us on a journey involving education, conservation, innovation, orchards and wellbeing – and informed us that cows in fields which contain native flowers will self-medicate and require less veterinary treatment. I truly believe every day is a schoolday!
We also heard from The Project Group (Oswestry) and how they have used art to help their members recover and acquire skills while growing the organisation into a sustainable position. Peter Holbrook, CEO of the Social Enterprise Coalition was as informative and entertaining as ever, with his take on what Big Society means for the sector.