Free Workshops on Social Enterprise in May and June 2024

 


Commissioned by Sutton Coldfield Neighbourhood Network Scheme

Developing your organisation and enterprise, a series of key workshops and one to one bespoke support to help you grow and sustain your services.

Sutton Coldfield NNS have commissioned Development in Social Enterprise to deliver four workshops and provide some additional one to one support to Sutton Coldfield organisations, to support your organisation develop and grow.

Choosing the right legal structure

There are eight legal structures that are suitable for organisations in the VCFSE sector and each of them have variants e.g. limited by guarantee or shares, small membership or large etc. They also have different regulatory requirements. If you are struggling to identify the best option for your group, or want a broader understanding of the options, then this workshop is for you.

The choosing the right legal structure workshop will:

·        Ensure delegates gain an understanding of the legal structures available

·        Enable delegates to identify the most appropriate structure for their work

·        Understand the regulatory requirements

·        Understand how to register with the appropriate regulator

Business and Financial Planning – Making the numbers work.

Planning is an important part of all our work, whether we are planning a project or developing a full business plan to seek investment to create more impact. Getting the fundamentals right, such as understanding full cost recovery, achievable (SMART) targets and outcomes, and the market we operate in can be daunting. This workshop will provide you with the tools to enable you to develop strong project or business plans and articulate them simply and effectively.

This workshop will:

·        Enable delegates to understand their full costs

·        Improve delegates confidence to develop budgets and financial forecasts   

·        Understand their market, competitors/ collaborators

·        Provide useful tools, templates, and resources to make planning simple

Sustainability through enterprise.

In our sector we often bid for funding and funders ask how we “aim to sustain the service” once the grant is completed. The sustainability through enterprise workshop will help you to identify how to sustain your services after initial pump prime or project based funding by developing or pivoting to an enterprising model.

The Sustainability through enterprise will enable delegates to:

·        Identify and understand the full costs of delivery

·        Understand your market and ideal customers

·        Understand where, and how, enterprise (trade) fits within their model

Measuring, Monitoring and Communicating Impact.

We all know the importance of measuring our impact, but we often struggle to monitor and measure it effectively. Being able to measure what we do, and our impact is one way to create a competitive advantage, equally it can help us improve our own performance. But how do we embed this into our every-day work and make it easy for us to communicate our impact to others?

The Measuring, Monitoring and Communicating Impact workshop will:

·        Enable delegates to understand the most common tools and frameworks to measure impact

·        Enable delegates to identify the most appropriate tool(s) for their work

·        Enable delegates to understand key performance indicators (KPI) relevant to their work

·        Enable delates to understand and develop their “theory of Change”

About the Trainer

David Lane is the Managing Director of Development in Social Enterprise, a specialised consultancy working with values led organisations throughout England. David has a degree in voluntary and community organisation development and has 40 years’ (30 at senior level) experience in the sector in Birmingham. He is SFEDI accredited (2009) with a social enterprise specialism.

David is considered an expert in his field and has delivered numerous VCFSE training workshops over the years, including “expert” led workshops for the school for social entrepreneurs (Midlands), workshop delivery for Social Enterprise West Midland’s and numerous consultancies including upskilling staff with VCFSE staff and leaders throughout England.

Some feedback quotes from DISE customers and students:

 The session was excellent, very insightful and thoughtfully addressed some of the current issues regarding governance and structure facing the third sector. DISE managed to cater for the different levels and backgrounds in the group from those starting out to our Head of Finance – thank you."  Birmingham Settlement

“Thank you for an excellent session yesterday. Students really valued it. Feedback on your session was 100% very useful. It doesn't get any better than that..." School for Social Entrepreneurs Midlands

“DISE’s experience of assisting similar community enterprises within Birmingham gave us the confidence that we had an achievable business plan that would satisfy the Council’s requirements and ensure that our greatly valued local heritage swimming facility remains for the benefit of local people." Chair Moseley Road Baths Action Group

“DISE were very good at speaking to all motivations throughout the organisation in an engaging and supportive way. They provided constructive challenge where needed and additional information where helpful to enable us to learn and make decisions that are right for us within the process." Brighton and Hove Community Works

“Access to expertise from knowledgeable practitioners at DISE enabled us to apply what we had learnt to a small scale study of our clients. We now have the tools and systems in place to get a direct measure of how we are doing in terms of our vision and CIC status." Hope Phycological Services

Framework and delivery dates.

Provisional dates for the workshops are as follows. The accessible training venue will be in Sutton Coldfield and we will notify you soon. The workshops are free to groups and community enterprises based in Sutton Coldfield or organisations whose services significantly benefit the citizens and community of Sutton Coldfield.

Wed 22nd May 2024 – workshop 1 

Wed 29th May 2024 – workshop 2

Wed 5th June 2024 – workshop 3

Wed 12th June 2024 – workshop 4

The workshops will be followed by support sessions for organisations who take part in at least 1 or more of the workshops. We encourage groups to attend as many of the four workshops as possible to gain maximum benefits from the expertise on offer.  

To express an interest in one or more of the workshop dates, please send an email to nns@ageconcernbirmingham.org.uk using the email heading DISE Training Workshop. Please specify which workshops you are interested in (you are encouraged to attend more than one or all 4). Places will be allocated on a first-apply-first-allocated basis. Initially only one place per Sutton Coldfield organisation - though this may be reconsidered dependent on the response we receive. 



Volunteer Fair a great success in Sutton Coldfield


What a wonderful day we had yesterday at the Sutton Coldfield NNS Volunteer Fair held at the United Reformed Church in the town centre. About 20 local not-for-profit oganisations had display tables at the event and around 60 local citizens came to the event enquiring about volunteering opportunities.

There was a great range of interesting projects from volunteer-led theatre companies to heritage, advice and eco-projects. We will be publishing a Guide to Volunteering soon, the electronic version of which can be viewed at this link:

My Volunteering Guide

We want to say a big thanks to everyone who attended the Volunteer Fair and to our friends at the United Reformed Church for hosting the event

Pictured above are our Sutton Coldfield NNS team, from left to right Joy, Cathy, Manjit, Joe, Suzy and Pete. Picture taken by Rachel.

   

Help us to document the wildlife of Birmingham and the Black Country this April!

 


From April 26th-29th, Birmingham and the Black Country (Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall & Wolverhampton) will be taking part in the 2024 City Nature Challenge - a fun, free, global challenge to see which city is wildest! Will you help us show the world how wild we REALLY are?

Click here for our FREE City Nature Challenge events!


How do I take part?

That's the easy bit - simply make a record of any wildlife you spot in Birmingham and the Black Country from April 26-29th, whether that's wildflowers in your garden or a list of birds from your local nature reserve. Every record counts and will help towards our total and move us up the global leader board!

The easiest way to make your records count is to use the free iNaturalist app or website. Simply take a photo of any plant or animal and the app's inbuilt software will help you to identify it whilst sending the record straight to us! You can watch a video guide to using iNaturalist below. Alternatively, you can email any records of wildlife you've spotted to enquiries@ecorecord.org.uk.

And why not join us for one of our free wildlife spotting events across the region? Led by our expert team, there be lots to see and learn! Click here to see the wild events we've got lined us for 2024.



What is City Nature Challenge?

The City Nature Challenge is an annual competition between cities all over the world to see how many wild species their citizens can spot over the space of four days. As well as being a fun activity, it generates useful species information that helps us to monitor the state of wildlife across our region and target our nature conservation activities to better protect wildlife.

During last year’s challenge we collectively managed make over 11,828 observations of a massive 1,355 different species! This result meant that Birmingham and the Black Country made more wildlife observations than any other UK city area and the 7th most of any city in Europe!

In 2024 there will be more cities than ever taking part, including our neighbours in Coventry, Solihull, Staffordshire and Warwickshire! We need you to help us beat our total in 2024! 


Volunteer Fair at Sutton Coldfield United Reformed Church


 

Cuppa and Chat at The Oddfellows Mere Green


Third Tuesday of the month 11.15am to 12.45pm

Looking to meet friendly people in your area, then why not join us for a cuppa and chat!

For further information contact Joanne 07542 802430 or Liz 0121 707 5626