Blogs

Sometimes good fortune just falls in your lap and today it did in the form of Divine Chocolate. I was just about to start planning my first visit ‘ambassador’ to Lawnswood School, where I’ll be talking with business students about social enterprise,  when the Sunday Times dropped through the letter box.  One of my favourite features is ‘A Life in the Day’ and I duly turned to the back of the magazine to read about Comfort Kumeah a Fairtrade cocoa farmer from Ghana. She work...

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When my business Angels Houskeeping was in the pre-start up stages I’d never heard of social enterprise but I’d had enough after years in a purely commercial environment and the voluntary sector (where I had escaped to) hugely frustrated me with its inefficiencies and endless funded projects that had limited impact. Here was an opportunity to combine business principles with services beneficial to the community and the absolute key to it for me was sustainability. Social business, like any...

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  When Gordon Brown is not so busy crying on Piers Morgan’s shoulder or allegedly shouting at his staff, he should spend some time thinking about his impending old age.  He is almost eligible to the subsidised rate my social enterprise business, Angels Housekeeping, charges to the over 60’s and if he was in Leeds we'd look after him beautifully. In recent weeks the news has been full of older people being the politically contentious hot topic of the moment.  According t...

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 .... I was getting ready to go to Downing Street to meet the Prime Minister.  Today is just a regular Thursday but no less varied, exciting or challenging a day. Mr Brown gave a nice speech and yes, it was good to be thanked for all the hard work we put in but I really feel that now is the time for more than just a few kind words.  Peter Holbrook (CEO of Sunlight) was in Birmingham earlier that day speaking at the Guardian Social Enterprise Event about the future of public servi...

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