Blogs

It was three years ago exactly when I first had my interview to be a Social Enterprise Ambassador and one of the questions posed to me was “How will you measure if you have been successful?”  The night before I had been watching Dragons Den and was furious  with their knock back of a nascent social enterprise.  They filed it neatly under “charity” and “not for profit” and did not understand  the potential for a company to generate a profit and make...

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It's been a weird and wonderful week with women at its heart.  On Tuesday I made a presentation to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills with Kresse Wesling the wonder woman who specializes in using waste materials to make lovely things.  Her current products include high-end Elvis & Kresse handbags, made from reclaimed fire brigade hoses and jute supermarket bags made from coffee sacks. On Wednesday I received the International Business Women award from SHE magazine ...

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Social Enterprises here in the UK should be exceptionally proud of how we have moved into pole position for developing the global movement. It wasn’t so long ago that people learning about best practice and development of social enterprises would almost always turn to the USA for their learning and to see great examples of social enterprise in action.   This is no longer the case, and developments like the Social Enterprise Mark have meant a further leap-frog into the future where the ...

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I was sat on a park bench at a playpark today watching my toddler happily running around with some other kids when one of the young mums in the group said she was thinking of starting up a social enterprise.  I was astonished – I had not told anyone there that I was involved in running a social enterprise or that I was promoting them through my role as an ambassador so this was someone who had got the message…..  Her idea was to turn her waterlogged garden into a bogland nature res...

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