Red Ochre

Celebrate our Community Success

anna@redochre.org.uk — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 12:11:00 GMT

Aylesbury Community Enterprise / Achievable Community Enterprise

Different approach? Replicable model? Worth further funding?

Tuesday 2 March 2010
12.00 - 14.00
The Riverside Room, Glaziers Hall, London Bridge

Nine months ago we had no social enterprises on our Estate, often reported as being the 'Estate From Hell'. A group of potential entrepreneurs met with the Red Ochre business team. The aim was to utilise the skills and talents found on the Estate to start sustainable enterprises that would positively affect the Aylesbury community.

Nine months on, we have ten social enterprises set up, opened a shop, brought the community together, raised our aspirations and increased our confidence. There’s a waiting list for ACE business courses and one to one business support.

We are now looking to the next nine months and beyond.

The entrepreneurs behind the ACE project invite you to a celebratory lunch at the Glaziers Hall, London Bridge. We’ll give you a short presentation to give you a taste of our enterprises explaining where we’ve come from and where we want to go.

After lunch there will be an opportunity to meet us in person and offer your thoughts on how to progress our enterprises further.

The ACE showcase event is being held in partnership with the Enterprising Places Network (EPN), run by Enterprise UK, the national campaign to give people the skills, confidence and ambition to be enterprising.

RSVP to anna@redochre.org.uk

ACES High!

anna@redochre.org.uk — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:32:00 GMT

Following the success of the ACE programme, NDC Creation has given Red Ochre further funding to run another course and a showcase event of the project. The ACES High showcase event will be held at on Tuesday 2nd March.

Our ACE beneficiaries will be there to tell you about their enterprises and how they have benefited from the programme.

For more information please e-mail penny@redochre.org.uk

Voluntary Partnership Awards

anna@redochre.org.uk — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 12:38:00 GMT

Red Ochre's Award Winning Mentoring Programme!

Penny, Red Ochre Director, was part of the 2010 Westminster Volunteering Partnership
Award winning team for ‘an innovative programme and a sustainable partnership’.

As Penny says, ‘The project turned the concept of mentoring on its head!’

Why? Read on!

The partnership was between the Department for Transport and Westminster’s Churchill Gardens Estate. Penny worked with them, and Time & Talents Westminster, to design and deliver a mentoring project for unemployed residents from the Churchill Gardens Estate, Pimlico.

Characteristically, a mentor is seen as ‘an accomplished, more experienced person who acts in the role of trusted advisor’. Classically the benefit in the relationship lies with the mentee. In this case, however, the pilot project revealed some fascinating insights. Unlike most mentoring schemes, the mentors benefited as much (if not more) than the mentees.

The mentors were a group of DfT fast-track graduates; they were action-orientated, fast-moving and highly qualified young people with relatively little work experience. The mentees generally were older, some had 25 years of work experience, all were unemployed and struggling to find jobs. The purpose of the project was to give them the skills and confidence they needed in writing cv’s, completing application forms and attending interviews.

The successful 6 month project resulted in over 50% of the mentees finding paid employment. The remainder have gained in self confidence and seen that progression is possible; they largely remain actively looking for work.

And for the mentors? They have gained soft skills they would have taken years to acquire. They have had to communicate and ‘manage’ an older and more experienced person, guide without pushing, support without propping, show patience and humility, listen before leaping into action, be responsible for another’s development – all qualities and skills needed in a leader. They also learnt about life beyond the privileged offices of the Civil Service. They gained all this in a short time and at very little expense to the DfT.

So a mentoring programme with a difference – and well deserving of its award!

Penny is currently supporting other mentoring programmes – the Capacity Builders Mentoring Programme (Community Alliance), Cardinal Hume Centre, FreshIdeas Events (for business women) and others.

Please contact Penny at penny@redochre.org.uk if you would like to know more.

Ex-Dragon Champions Social Enterprise

anna@redochre.org.uk — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:48:00 GMT

Doug Richard's of Dragon's Den Fame now runs the School for Startups. This is a rolling programme to encourage enterprise in the UK. Doug being American does things big - his presentations are to huge audiences and increasingly these are streamed so as to connect to even more people.

The growth in interest led Doug to create a half day event specifically for Social Enterprise at the Royal Institution on the 19th of January. In front of an audience of hundreds Doug spoke in his inimitable and amusing way about the fundamentals of starting a successful enterprise. A succession of social entrepreneurs spoke about their experiences and challenges.

A large part of the day was devoted to finance issues. Red Ochre's Managing Director Uday Thakkar shared a half hour session with Doug and discussed and answered questions on "What type of Social Enterprise are you?". The question and answer session touched extensively on legal structures and the challenges they present to financing and scaling up social enterprise in the UK.

Uday is seen below with Doug and also answering questions from the audience.

Social Enterprise Growth in Japan

anna@redochre.org.uk — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 14:00:00 GMT

A team of Japanese social entrepreneurs and members of the Japanese Cabinet Office visited the UK to get a better understanding of the social enterprise sector. In particular they wanted to understand the legal structures and how social enterprise is encouraged and supported by the government here.

Miho Matsushita the Deputy Director of Economic, Fiscal and Social Structure, Cabinet Office and Hiroki Komazaki the founder of the social enterprise Florence, accompanied by the First Secretary of the Japanese Embassy Katsumi Ishizu visited Red Ochre to discuss social enterprise legal structures, statutory support, funding, finance and strategy.

The visit was facilitated through Imperial College and a previous Japanese academic study that had been supported by Red Ochre.

The discussion was wide ranging and touched on the problems particularly on the short comings of the current range of legal structures and the problems these caused in obtaining finance and achieving scale.

Miho and Hiroki presented Red Ochre's managing director Uday Thakkar a small gift for the help afforded to them, see picture below.

Inspiring children about Social Enterprise

anna@redochre.org.uk — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:57:00 GMT

Uday Thakkar is one of 33 social entrepreneurs featured on the children’s web site - Moss Green Children’s Books. Each of the entrepreneurs was asked to write about their journey into social enterprise and the books that inspired them as children. Uday’s journey can be found at:

http://www.mossgreenchildrensbooks.co.uk/3086/social-enterprise-interview-with-uday-thakkar-of-red-ochre/

West Sussex Social Enterprise Innovation Award 2009/10

anna@redochre.org.uk — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 16:02:00 GMT

Do you have an innovative idea that could benefit the community and/or environment?
Are you looking for an award that will help you develop the idea into a reality?

1st Prize = £5,000
2nd Prize = £2,000

If so, check out the attached guidlines and fill in an application form
Deadline for applications - 29th January 2010.

The award is open to any organisation or person in West Sussex
as long as the idea is developed as a social enterprise.

For more information, please contact 01243 777606 or email: esg@westsussex.gov.uk

Social Enterprise Workshop

anna@redochre.org.uk — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:01:00 GMT

Imperial College London’s Faculty of natural sciences: Centre for Environmental policy has once again invited Uday Thakkar to run a half day workshop on Social Enterprise, on the 19th January. The workshop for students completing their MSc in environmental Technology/ Business & Environment was a great success last year and resulted in a number of students to change direction into social or ethical business and also instigated in a dissertation entitled “Can social business values be developed within a commercial, profit maximising business environment, and if so, how?” from Ben Lewis.

CAN Mezzanine - Great offices for the Third Sector

anna@redochre.org.uk — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:11:00 GMT

CAN Mezzanine provides affordable high-quality office space for the third sector for only £333 per month per desk. Sold on a flexible desk basis, the space includes access to meeting and conference rooms, a full-time receptionist, post room facilities, full stocked kitchens and regular networking and social events, at no extra charge. We currently have three central London sites in London Bridge, Southwark and Old Street

See the community space for yourself, visit www.canmezzanine.org.uk or call Claire on 020 7250 8001 (Old Street), Martina on 020 7922 7702 or Stephanie on 020 7785 6212.

Charity no. 1104911”

Aylesbury Arena - 24th November

anna@redochre.org.uk — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:06:00 GMT

Aylesbury Arena - 24th November

What an evening! The residents of the Aylesbury Estate gathered for a night of tension and drama as 7 of the Aylesbury Community Enterprise (ACE) participants pitched their business ideas to a panel of 3 judges. Entering to the sound of a drum roll, each contestant stepped up to tell us about their enterprise – the production of funky laptop covers, recycling furniture, establishing an art space, photographic and video-graphic work, setting up a chess club, ethical clothing produced on the Estate and supporting disadvantaged people in Southwark. The audience loved it and the professionalism of the presentations impressed us all. Everyone was a winner – the contestants with their prizes, the audience who enjoyed a fun event, the Aylesbury Estate with new enterprises being established. As one of the contestants said: ‘Red Ochre has shown me that anything is possible, even on the Aylesbury.’

The Arena forms part of the year-long ACE project funded by NDC Creation. We have delivered a series of social enterprise courses and given 1:1 business support to a number of Aylesbury Estate residents.

Faiths in Action

anna@redochre.org.uk — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 11:04:00 GMT

Faiths in Action aims to support faith communities and others to promote understanding, dialogue and develop strong and sustainable partnerships. Faiths is Action is managed by the Community Development Foundation (CDF) on behalf of the Department for Communities and Local Government. For Round 2 CDF hope to award grants to organisations and partnerships which will support a wide variety of local activities in a range of community settings. This includes innovative new ideas as well as 'tried and tested' approaches. The fund is open to voluntary and community organisations at national, regional and local level in England.

We encourage you to check that your profile is up to date on the governmentfunding.org.uk website by clicking the following link: http://www.governmentfunding.org.uk

To contact governmentfunding.org.uk, please email on enquiries@governmentfunding.org.uk.

Low Carbon Communities Challenge

anna@redochre.org.uk — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:47:00 GMT

Status: Open to applications
Start Date: 28 September 2009
Application Deadline: 28 October 2009

Description
Financial assistance is available for local authorities, social enterprises and third sector bodies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland to carry out initiatives that will cut carbon emissions in their community

Details

Fund Value: £ 10,000,000
Maximum Value: £ 500,000

Value Notes

£5m of the programme's budget will be spent during 2009-10, the remaining £5m will be allocated during 2010-11.

Extended Description

The Low Carbon Communities Challenge is provided by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) in partnership with the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (DETNI).

The two-year, £10m programme aims to support a range of capital improvement projects that will help to tackle climate change across England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

Local authorities, local strategic partnerships, social enterprises and third sector bodies - such as charities and voluntary groups - can apply on behalf of their local community to receive funding to carry out projects that reduce carbon emissions. Funding is only available for communities that are already taking some form of action to combat climate change, and will be distributed through two strands:

Phase One - "first mover" applications from communities that are already green "exemplar" areas and have incorporated integrated plans to tackle climate change at a local level. Funding is available to help communities build on, learn from and share their low carbon experiences.
Phase Two - "second mover" applications for communities that are already taking some action to tackle climate change but are interested in developing more integrated plans to cut emissions.
Each phase has a £5m budget and can offer grants worth up to £500,000.

It is thought that up to 20 communities will be supported through the initiative over the 2010-2012 period covering a broad cross-section of society, for example, urban and rural, sizes of community, and different demographics.

Latest Information

Organisations have until 28 October 2009 to register an intention to apply:

Phase One applications must be made by 27 November 2009.
Phase Two applications must be made by 30 December 2009.
Key Criteria

The following types of organisation are eligible to apply for funding on behalf of their "community":

Local authorities.
Local strategic partnerships.
Legally constituted third sector bodies, including:
Social enterprises.
Charities.
Voluntary and community groups.
Interested communities must already be taking some form of action to tackle climate change (for example, be a Warm Zone, eco-town, or low carbon community).

Applications will be assessed against criteria including:

The project's overall ability to deliver community-wide plans for cutting carbon emissions and meet the objectives of the programme.
Whether the project will deliver integrated outcomes, for example, encouraging a wide range of interventions such as technological, financial, regulatory, behavioural and cultural.
How the project will build on previous work and bring together learning, skills and resources.
How the project recognises communities as "places" and will make sure green initiatives will increase residents' sense of identity and belonging.
Whether the project will foster community leadership, involvement and partnership.
Evidence the applicants are willing to learn from the project and are able to quantify the project's impact on carbon reduction, energy use and other sustainability areas.
Whether the project is able to be replicated on a wider scale.
Whether the project is equitable and sustainable.
Eligible Expenditure

Capital costs associated with eligible low carbon projects, including:

Community wind turbines.
Biomass heating pumps.
A programme of street-by-street housing retrofits.
Up to 10% of any grant can be used for project management costs associated with relevant capital projects

Match Funding Restrictions

Private sector or other government match funding is desirable but not mandatory

Restrictions

Applicants must comply with European Commission restrictions on State Aid.

Further Information

Along with capital funding, the programme will also provide advice, free training and a framework for communities to share good practice.

Payment Procedure

Grants will be paid retrospectively upon proof that items or equipment has been received

Application Procedure

Shortlisted applicants may be invited to present their ideas in greater depth.

Contact the relevant government department for further information

Addresses and contacts

For further information on how to obtain this funding opportunity locally, please contact the following:

Contact details:

Harriet Festing
Department of Energy and Climate Change
3 Whitehall Place
London
SW1A 2HH
Telephone: 0300 060 4000

Jennifer Pride
Welsh Assembly Government
Cathays Park
Cardiff
CF10 3NQ

Alison Clydesdale
Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment
Netherleigh House
Massey Avenue
Belfast
BT4 2JP
Telephone: 028 9052 9900

Testimonial from Gaby Rose, The British Library Business & IP Centre

anna@redochre.org.uk — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 17:34:00 GMT

“The British Library Business & IP Centre has been working with Red Ochre over the past 2 years and we work in partnership to help support Social Entrepreneurs and SMEs. Red Ochre are a fantastic organisation to work with, not only do they lead in supporting Social Entrepreneurs and on Social Enterprise, but they are professional, competent and experts in their field. Uday and his team are passionate about the work they carry out and deliver exceptionally high quality support and advice. We have benefited immensely over the years by working with Red Ochre and hope that by working as strategic delivery partners we can help to engage wider audiences and benefit more businesses in the social enterprise arenas. I look forward to continuing to work closely with Red Ochre in the future.” - Gaby Rose, Business Engagement Manager from the British Library Business & IP Centre.

Red Ochre’s Managing Director invited to a Round Table discussion with Ministers

anna@redochre.org.uk — Thu, 14 May 2009 09:59:00 GMT

Uday Thakkar together with a number of other well known social entrepreneurs met with Gordon Brown, Hazel Blears, James Purnell, Liam Byrne and John Healey at 10 Downing Street, (13th May, 2009). The occasion was the launch of the Government's £1bn Future Jobs Fund. Ministers want social enterprises to be involved in job creation and are suggesting that they could be responsible for creating 150,000 between now and 2011.

Whilst greatly encouraged by the funding and the involvement of social enterprises in participating in the delivery of the jobs there was a note of caution. Jonathan Bland, the chief Executive of SEC, asked ministers to keep in mind that bureaucracy and unwieldy structures did not stifle the participation of social enterprises. Other commented that as local authorities are being encouraged to take the lead in accessing the fund there remained a fear that social enterprises would be ignored or marginalised. Primarily because the majority of local authorities still did not understand social enterprises.

Uday Thakkar asked ministers to commit to social enterprise and not just to deal with the current economic climate and the expected increase in unemployment. He pointed out that social enterprises have been tackling unemployment in some of the most marginalised areas and that this type of work would need to continue even when the economy improved.

Future Jobs Fund bidding is now open - for more information please go to www.dwp.gov.uk/futurejobsfund where you will find a letter from the Secretary of State and Permanent Secretary, the summary guide, the bidding documents and the guidance notes for the Future Jobs Fund.

Aylesbury Community Enterprise Project

anna@redochre.org.uk — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 10:43:00 GMT

Aylesbury Community Enterprise (ACE) was launched on May 7th

Featured in 24 dash.com. Please click here to read the posting of the launch.

Penny Daly from Red Ochre said: “We know there’s a lot of talent here and we’re really looking forward to seeing it grow. We’re providing training and mentoring, helping people work up their plans, prepare their pitches and supporting the successful ones as their work is put into action."

ACE is a unique 12 month social enterprise development project in the NDC Aylesbury Estate, Southwark. It is delivered by Red Ochre and funded by NDC Creation.

The Estate has few commercial enterprises, let alone social enterprises. The project has been designed to raise awareness of social entrepreneurship as a means of bringing together people and communities for economic development and social gain. We are offering a mix of business training workshops, social enterprise forums, 1:1 business support and preparation for the Aylesbury Arena – the Estate’s version of a “Dragons’ Den” event. For the entrants, there will be cash prizes, further business support and pointers towards additional funding.

ACE is open to residents of NDC Aylesbury Estate.

For more information: contact Penny at ace@redochre.org.uk or 020 7785 6293