The more I read the news the more apoplectic I become. Basically it comes down to two core truths: Big Business Sucks; Big Politics sucks. The former has sucked everything and everybody dry, robbed us of all life. The latter has sucked up to the former and greased the wheels of legislation for a greased palm or two. The only realsitic way to stop this is to stop playing their game their way like a bunch of wet sheep on morphine.

OK, we’re all in this together – I’m guessing we have certain wish-list items in common. For example: we all want a world in which it’s safe for us to breathe, eat and drink; we’d like our children and grandchildren to have the same gorgeous natural surroundings we have been privileged to enjoy. We’d like to see less warfare and fear, more peace and laughter. We sometimes feel there’s little we can do to help. WRONG. Research shows there are 250 million of us – people who want a just and sustainable future (I’ll come back to this in future postings). Do the sums, we can make a HUGE difference, starting with where we shop and what we choose to buy. And better still, where and what we DON’T choose to buy.

FatWest, General Bloaters and Gainsburys don’t give a toss about us or our wellbeing. Why would we give them all the cash earned with our blood, sweat and tears? It’s like cooking lunch for someone who’s just mugged you.

Time to rebel. Be revolting – you have nothing to lose except your shackles…

Rob Weston, Schmeditor

Picks from the Market

EcoOutlet have a great range of ethical goodies. This fruit, vegetable and wheatgrass juicer not only requires no electricity, it actually produces higher-nutrient juices than the carbon-villain variety…

Well Cultivated – these guys are the real thing. They check everything, they really care about making a difference and they have seriously cool stuff. 

Natural Home Products are very rare – they have 20 years of specialist experience in seriously high-integrity bedding products, yet they make no self-important claims. They just take good care of their customers and provide superb products, again and again and again. Here, to prove the point, are two organic summer duvets to keep you cool at night:

Teramo Summer Organic Merino LambsWool Duvet
Firenze Summer Organic Cotton Duvet

Cool Green Attitude is a company founded by mums for kids and their families who want great clothes that look and feel wonderful and do no harm to others. If you are going to have attitude, this is the kind we want… have a look at their cool green t-shirts!

Picks from the Pulse

New Social enterprise round up from the Social Enterprise Coalition

Antartic Ice Shelf Destabilised

Ethical Junction gets on Twitter!  @ethicaljunction

The Environmental Transport Association slate the “car scrappage scheme”!

While in London on Wednesday the Team at MoreEco decided to make a quick visit to Grand Designs Live at Excell in London. Are main aim was to have a look at the Eco buildings which were being showcased at the event.

We visited the future-build theatre by ECO2H2OUSE.  This eco house
demonstrated the techologies being used in the building of a low/zero
carbon home. In the UK today, an average new house which uses the technology
involved will consume 77% less energy for space heating when compared with one
built to standard building regulations.

The Eco House uses
innovative low-energy technology that has been designed to meet the
passive house energy standards and levels of air tightness. The Passive
house standard is as follow;

• Compact form & good insulation
• Southern orientation & shade considerations
• Energy-efficient window glazing & frames
• Highly efficient heat recovery form exhaust air using and air to air heat exchanger
• Energy-saving household appliances
• Total energy demand for space heating and cooling of less than 15kWh/m2/yr

The second eco house we toured was the ‘EcoHub’. This cute mini dome-shaped eco pod offers teh last word in super energy efficiency. Clad in sustainable wooden or recycled tyre tiles, this tw-bedroom, double pod home uses mirco-renewable technology to achives a zero carbon rating. The people at EcoHub are committed to dramatically reduce our carbon footprint. We got on well with them as this is the same aim at we have at MoreEco.

The third eco house we were inspired by, was the landARK. If you have a scrap of land, maybe a back garden, a hillside, a coppice clearing, or maybe eveen a corner of somebody’s car park (plus a few weeks holiday) then this i agreat fun eco house to have. All you need is a rubber mallet, a tape measure, screwdrives, a powerdrive drill and enough peace to read the manual. Checlkout the pictures we have taken.

Finally the last house we visited was the Cloud 9 stand. These timber eco homes are again made with sustainable timber and come with solar panels, heat recovery ventilation, large windows and open space plan. energy bills for these house are less than £400 per year.

We have uploaded pictures of the Grand Designs Live event taken from the trustworthy MoreEco iPhone to Moreeco Flickr account. The slide show is below.

ScienceDaily (2009-04-29) — Satellite images show that icebergs have begun to calve from the northern front of the Wilkins Ice Shelf – indicating that the huge shelf has become unstable. This follows the collapse three weeks ago of the ice bridge that had previously linked the Antarctic mainland to Charcot Island.

Read more here…

Responsible Investment
General Editor: Dr Rory Sullivan (Head of Responsible Investment, Insight Investment)

In 2006, Greenleaf published the ground-breaking collection Responsible Investment, edited by Rory Sullivan and Craig Mackenzie. In response to the very positive feedback we have received on this volume, and given the central importance of investors in ensuring high standards of corporate governance and corporate responsibility as well as the wider importance of the capital markets to sustainable development, we have decided to establish the Greenleaf Responsible Investment Series.

The series aims to provide a forum for outstanding empirical and theoretical work in all aspects of responsible investment. It will seek to explicitly integrate theory about responsible investment with management practice, providing a forum where the tensions and practical realities of responsible investment can be addressed in a readable, robust, and conceptually and empirically rigorous format. The series will publish the best ideas and research on responsible investment in a manner that is accessible, engaging, interesting and useful for readers in business, consultancy, government, NGOs and academia.

The scope of the series is deliberately broad, reflecting the breadth of issues, strategies and actors involved. We welcome proposals/publications on all aspects of responsible investment, including but not limited to:

    *      Responsible investment strategies (engagement, voting, screening, investment integration, etc.), examining question such as the investment performance of different investment strategies and the environmental, social and governance outcomes that have been achieved.
    *      Responsible investment in different asset classes (equities, fixed income, commodities, government debt, private equity, hedge funds, fund-of-fund strategies, etc.)
    *     Responsible investment by different actors (e.g. pension funds, asset managers, sovereign wealth funds, private equity funds, insurance companies). This could include consideration of the strategies adopted, the outcomes achieved, the political context within which responsible investment has been implemented, the barriers to action, and the manner in which organisational issues (beliefs, resources, capacities) have been addressed
    *     Responsible investment in different geographical regions, and how geography, politics and economics influence the shape, form and outcomes from responsible investment
    *     Investor collaboration, focusing on how collective initiatives such as the Carbon Disclosure Project, the UN Principles for Responsible Investment and PharmaFutures have functioned and the environmental, social and governance outcomes they have delivered
    *     The public policy implications of responsible investment. This could include analysis of the role of investors in public policy processes, and the policy contribution of self-regulatory initiatives such as the UN Principles for Responsible Investment
    *     Responsible investment and fiduciary duty. This could include analysis of issues such as investor time horizons, governance issues within the investment chain or obstacles to mainstreaming responsible investment
    *     Stakeholders’ views on responsible investment, including examples of where stakeholders have sought to harness the capital markets to deliver on their specific campaigning objectives
    *     The role of responsible investment in responding to specific environmental, social or governance issues. This could be analysed thematically (e.g. climate change, executive remuneration, responsible banking, development/poverty alleviation, human rights) or could be a wider look at the role of the capital markets in the global financial crisis
    *     The changing investment landscape. For example, what are the wider implications of mainstreaming responsible investment (e.g. will investors’ expectations coalesce around lowest-common-denominator approaches), and how will the move from defined benefit to defined contribution affect the market for responsible investment?

We welcome proposals for both authored books and edited collections. We are also interested in proposals/abstracts for case studies or stand-alone articles. These may be considered for dedicated issues of the Journal of Corporate Citizenship or Greener Management International, or for specific collections in this series.

Once we have received these materials, we will initiate a review process and aim to provide a detailed response as quickly as practicable.

More details and proposal guidelines

Limited offer: 40% discount

Offer ends 31st May 2009

MORE INFORMATION

As sales for organic and Fairtrade cotton rise, a major event in
Bristol investigates the future of the fibre

April
2009

A
groundbreaking conference to be held in Bristol on 9 May will present
a new vision for sustainability in the cotton industry. [1]

‘COTTON
ON!’
will
be introduced by environment journalist Lucy Siegle and will offer
expert speakers from the Department for International Development,
Soil Association Oxfam, Fairtrade Foundation, Labour Behind the
Label, Gossypium, Monsoon, and more. [2]

The
event will cover everything from fashion and design to the chain from
cotton plant to high-street store product.

The
latest organic market report from the Soil Association reveals
significant growth in sales of organic cotton which increased
by 40% in 2008 and total UK sales of organic clothing and textiles
reached £100 million.

Consumer
demand for ethically produced cotton is clear – the question is
whether the industry can rise to this demand?

Tim
March, head of marketing for Howies clothing company, who are
sponsoring the event, said:

“We
are delighted to support this important and challenging event. Howies
is committed to ethical standards and we are keen to see the debate
develop and move on.

“This
is not preaching to the converted – we’re bringing together people
who might not often get the chance to sit at the same table, such as
campaigners, big retailers and government, with the aim of working
out some real solutions.”

Hannah
Durrant, campaigner for Oxfam in the South West, added:

“Many
cotton farmers compete in a world market that excludes them with
subsidies paid to farmers in richer countries. On a recent visit to
Mali I met farmers who said that producing organic and Fairtrade
cotton really makes a difference to them. We want to see more farmers
around the world get a chance at a fair deal.”

Ends

For
further information please contact the Soil Association press office:

Clio
Turton, senior press officer, 0117 914 2448 / 07795 562 556 /

press@soilassociation.org

Notes
to editors:

[1]
The
Council House, College Green, Bristol, BS1 5TR

9
May, 9.30am to 4.30pm

£12
/ conc. £8

Tickets
available at http://tinyurl.com/cotton-on-booking

[2]
The
event has been organised by the Soil Association, Oxfam Campaigns
South West, Bristol Fairtrade Network and Bishopston Trading Company.

Bristol
City Council is also supporting Cotton On and is currently
investigating ethical workwear for its staff. Bristol is leading the
green agenda and was recently the only UK finalist to become a Green
City.

Produced daily by the Social Enterprise Coalition

CICs should get tax
relief

Hundreds of miles
of ice drop from Antarctic shelf

 Blears: ‘Recession
could cause civil unrest and fracture communities’

Continue reading for lots more…

National

CICs should get tax
relief

Gemma Hampson,
Social Enterprise Magazine

Community interest
companies (CICs) should be entitled to an equivalent of Gift Aid,
according to the law firm behind the legal structure. Abbie Rumbold,
a partner with Bates Wells and Braithwaite, which helped set up the
CIC structure four years ago, is working with the Social Enterprise
Coalition to push for tax relief for the 2,600 registered CICs. She
said the success of the CIC structure showed it was seen as a
valuable legal structure and that tax incentives would see it grow
even further.

http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/news/detail/index.asp?id=950

Learning from
others is a key to success

Social Enterprise
Magazine

John Pepin is
consultancy firm JPA’s Europe partner and has over 15 years as a
CEO of a variety of charities and social enterprises. He also has a
wealth of consultancy experience in many areas from strategic and
business planning, to collaboration, sales and mentoring.  Here,
he talks about his latest experience at a master class for social
entrepreneurs in Indonesia.  On 23-24 March in Jakarta, 18
social entrepreneurs gathered for a master class entitled Skills for
Social Entrepreneurs, Achieving Your Dreams: Growing Your Enterprise
Profitability, Enhancing Your Financial and Social Return.

http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/tradingplace/detail/index.asp?id=949

Filling the gap

Joanna Lyall, The
Guardian

As the government
looks for savings from public services, a small building in a
Derbyshire mining village could reshape the way we receive NHS dental
care. Here in South Normanton, Genesis Dental Care opened its first
practice as a social enterprise, welcoming NHS patients just months
after new contractual arrangement in April 2006 led to more than
1,000 dentists fleeing the NHS. “The nation seemed deprived of
dental solutions, and the new contract was going to make the needs
even more acute,” says former banker Steve Holmes, chief
executive of Genesis Social Enterprises.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/29/dentists-shortage-nhs

Reluctant role
model

Mary O’Hara, The
Guardian

As one idea after
another pours from Mark Brown, he comes across like the enthused
young editor of any start-up magazine – and with its playful design
and headlines like “Eat yourself fitter”, the magazine he
edits looks and feels like any lifestyle publication. But it isn’t.

….Brown recalls how,
sitting in a greasy spoon cafe in Camden, north London, a couple of
years ago, he and a few colleagues from the social enterprise Social
Spider, where he is a director, “knocked the idea around”
for a magazine that could plug the “information gap” for
people with mental illness.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/apr/29/one-in-four-mental-health

Blears: ‘Recession
could cause civil unrest and fracture communities’

Jon Land, 24dash

The recession could
tip Britain towards riots and civil disorder unless voluntary
organisations are handed extra resources, Communities Secretary Hazel
Blears will warn today. Promising to come up with sustainable sources
of funds by the summer, Ms Blears will say the economic downturn
could either drive communities apart or bring them closer
together.
….”Not ‘on your bike’ like previous recessions,
but how can we help you open a bike repair workshop, start a social
enterprise to encourage cycling, start a bike-share scheme in your
neighbourhood.

http://www.24dash.com/news/Local_Government/2009-04-29-Blears-Recession-could-cause-civil-unrest-and-fracture-communities

Barnardo’s to
deliver training contract to Doha charity

Charity Finance

Barnardo’s has
secured a six-figure contract to deliver training and professional
development to a children’s disability charity in Qatar.

In the first phase of
the partnership, the Shafallah Center for Children with Special Needs
in Doha will be visited by Barnardo’s staff who will conduct a
needs analysis and decide what kind of training the Qatari employees
could best benefit from.
….The contract will be delivered by
Barnardo’s training social enterprise, tlc, which earns the charity
more than £700,000 a year.

http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=2775&pg=15&cat=58

Nunn to leave
Futurebuilders in restructuring

Futurebuilders
England’s director of market development, Gill Nunn, is to leave
the organisation at the end of June as part of a “proposed
restructure” at the government funder. She will have been in the
post for nine months. According to Futurebuilders’ interim head of
press, Jo White, Nunn (pictured) has taken voluntary redundancy as
part of a proposed restructuring of the organisation.  White
said the restructure had been prompted by the winning of the contract
to deliver the Department of Health’s £100m Social Enterprise
Investment Fund. “The organisation needs to change to accommodate
that,” she said.

http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=2772&pg=15&cat=58

Scottish SMEs
’should capitalise on public contracts’

Small Business

Public bodies in
Scotland are being encouraged to give small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs) access to their contracts. Finance minister John
Swinney outlines a range of measures which can be taken to increase
the number of small firms, charities and social enterprises winning
public sector contracts. He suggests small businesses would benefit
from more promotion of the free Public Contracts Scotland online
portal which highlights opportunities. In addition, outcome-based
tenders which encourage innovation and payment terms that ensure
settlement within 30 days could make public sector contracts more
attractive.

http://www.smallbusiness.co.uk/channels/sales-and-marketing/news/1021111/scottish-smes-should-capitalise-on-public-contracts.thtml

Local

Business Diary

North West Evening
Mail

A CUMBRIAN-based
organisation is behind a major social enterprise summit underlying
the sector’s key role in driving the North West out of
recession.NEW luxury hotel, Eden Lodge, owned by a German
businessman, opens at Bardsea. The event has been launched as new
figures reveal that the Third Sector is generating £2bn for the
region’s economy, employs 50,000 people and utilises the resources
of 30,000 volunteers. Kevin Brennan, Minister for the Third Sector,
will deliver the keynote speech at the event being put together by
Social Enterprise North West and Cumbria’s Social Enterprise
Partnership.

http://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/business_2_3069/business_diary_1_547339?referrerPath=raiders

Commissioner visit
to see EU funds helping economic development and regeneration

East Midlands
Development Agency

Danuta Hübner,
European Commissioner for Regional Policy, today visited the East
Midlands to witness first hand how European money is being used to
increase levels of innovation, productivity and enterprise. This
visit comes one year on from emda’s official launch of the region’s
new European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) Competitiveness
Programme for the period 2007 – 2013
….ERDF is a valuable
source of funding for Local Authorities, universities, business
support intermediaries, entrepreneurs, social enterprises and
community organisations.

http://www.emda.org.uk/news/newsreturn.asp?fileno=3612

New grant unveiled
for Peak District Businesses

Staffordshire
Moorlands District Council

FARMERS and small
businesses in the Peak District have been urged to apply for a new
grant starting at £3,500. The plea was made this week by
Staffordshire Moorlands District Council after the European Union and
the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs agreed to
plough £1.9m into a Leader programme established for the Peak
District Rural Action Zone.

….The Leader
initiative is intended to improve productivity and quality of life in
the Peak District by funding projects drawn up by micro businesses
and social enterprises that are too small to qualify for the main
RDPE programme.

http://www.staffsmoorlands.gov.uk/site/scripts/news_article.php?newsID=768

Helping disabled in
the workplace

Isle of Man Today

A COMBINATION of
corporate goodwill and one of the world’s largest auction websites is
set to become the launch pad for helping people with disabilities in
the Isle of Man into full time work. Friends Provident International,
one of the Isle of Man’s leading life and pension companies, has
helped fund start-up costs for a new office project in Douglas to be
run by the Crossroads charity.
….Now they have come up with the
novel idea of starting a Social Enterprise initiative, employing
people with disabilities to work in office premises above the main
shop, marketing and selling some of these donated products on eBay.

http://www.iomtoday.co.im/isle-of-man-business/Helping-disabled-in-the-workplace.5202929.jp

Battle to reopen
Albion Leisure Centre

This is Nottingham

PROTESTERS who want to
reopen an Ilkeston leisure centre have been given new hope. They
gathered in Ilkeston ahead of an extraordinary meeting of Erewash
Borough Council yesterday. It was called to discuss the Albion
Leisure Centre which the council closed last year. Members of the
public formed the Friends of Albion Leisure Centre (FALC) and applied
to reopen the building as a social enterprise, but their bid was
rejected. Yesterday evening, around 50 people – many of whom were
children – gathered to protest about the rejection of the bid and
called for the council to reopen negotiations over the centre’s
future.

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/homenews/Hope-leisure-centre-campaigners/article-945413-detail/article.html

Of general interest

Politics:

Back expenses
changes, urges PM

BBC News Online

Gordon Brown has urged
MPs to back his planned expenses reforms in Thursday’s vote, despite
having dropped the main proposal for a daily allowance. He has faced
calls to delay any changes until after an independent inquiry but
says interim action must be taken now.

Tory MP Bill Cash
jibed Mr Brown about his “comedy turn on YouTube” – a
reference to the internet broadcast in which he outlined his original
plan. He told MPs he would keep using YouTube as an important
information tool.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8024433.stm

Business:

‘Talks to end
working time opt out fail’
Bob
Sherwood and Stanley Pignal, Financial Times

British employers
breathed a sigh of relief on Tuesday after attempts to abolish the
UK’s right to opt out of European Union rules limiting a working
week to 48 hours finally disintegrated. The failure of marathon
negotiations between the European parliament and EU governments to
break the deadlock on the issue means UK companies will continue to
be able to offer staff the opportunity to work longer hours.  The
CBI employers’ organisation hailed the retention of the opt-out as
a “victory for common sense”. Pat McFadden, employment relations
minister, said the government had “refused to be pushed into a bad
deal for Britain”.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e7bd1924-33c3-11de-83af-00144feabdc0.html

Environment:

Hundreds of miles
of ice drop from Antarctic shelf

David Rising, The
Independent

New satellite images
from the European Space Agency show massive amounts of ice are
breaking away from a shelf on the western side of the Antarctic
Peninsula, researchers said today. The Wilkins Ice Shelf had been
stable for most of the last century, but began retreating in the
1990s. Researchers believe it was held in place by an ice bridge
linking Charcot Island to the Antarctic mainland.

But the
127-square-mile (330-square-kilometer) bridge lost two large chunks
last year and then shattered completely on 5 April.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/hundreds-of-miles-of-ice-drop-from-antarctic-shelf-1676149.html

 Future’s
recent launch, The
Knitter is
celebrating World Fair Trade Day on the 9^th
May with an all-ethical
issue, with every aspect of the magazine using organic or ethical
products and patterns.

 On
sale today, and printed on environmentally-approved  Forestry
Stewardship Council paper; every pattern is knitted in an organic or
ethical yarn, each new product featured has ethical credentials, and
the garments and accessories for the photoshoot were as ethically
sound as possible.  The team even recycled their teabags whilst
putting the issue together!

 Ethical
living guru, Lucy Siegel – who writes for The Observer and is a
reporter for The One Show on BBC TV contributes a feature on how
knitters can make an informed choice when buying yarn. Lucy helps
knitters to understand how to be a better consumer even in these
difficult times, with advice on chemical usage, cruelty-free
production, knitting with plant fibres and keeping it local.

Exclusive
patterns using organic or ethical yarns include a Moroccan-inspired
tunic by Martin Storey, embroidered socks by Lucinda Guy, a feminine
tie-fronted cardigan by Amanda Crawford, and a 1940s fitted top
brought up to date with modern yarns and fitting.

 Juliet
Bernard, Editor of The Knitter said:

 ”When
we discussed doing an ethical issue it was very important to us that
we could turn our whole issue over to ethical principles and not just
pay lip service to the idea.  Our readers will be able to see
how the choices they make can have a really positive impact. Ethical
living is extremely important to me and I am very proud of what we
have achieved in Issue 5 of The Knitter.”

 Regular
features include inspiring patterns from around the world, a
techniques Masterclass on short-row shaping, a competition to raise
money for Macmillan Cancer Support and an exclusive column from the
stars of America’s blogging scene, Mason-Dixon.

 Issue
5 of The Knitter is on sale now, priced at £5.99.

 About
Future
Future
plc is an international special-interest media group that is listed
on the London Stock Exchange (symbol FUTR).  Founded in 1985
with one magazine, today we have operations in the UK, US and
Australia creating over 180 special-interest publications, websites
and events for people who are passionate about their interests. 
We hold strong market positions in games, film, music, technology,
cycling, automotive and crafts.  Our biggest-selling magazines
include T3,
Total Film, Digital Camera, Fast Car, Classic Rock, Guitar World,
Official Xbox Magazine, Official Playstation Magazine, Nintendo
Power, Maximum PC
and MacLife. 
Our websites include gamesradar.com,
bikeradar.com,
techradar.com,
and musicradar.com. 
Future produces over 4 million magazines each month; we attract more
than 18 million unique visitors to our websites; and we host 25
annual live events that attract hundreds of thousands of
enthusiasts.  In addition, Future exports, syndicates or
licenses its publications to 90 countries internationally, making us
the UK’s number one exporter and licensor of monthly magazines.

 For
further information

For more
information please contact Jen Campbell, Communications Executive on
01225 732269 or jen.campbell@futurenet.com

Produced daily by the Social Enterprise Coalition

Triodos or Unity
should run social investment bank, says academic

New financial model
‘will allow charities to compete with construction companies’

Help for small
businesses

Continue reading for lots more…

National

Social enterprise
going ‘over the heads’ of NHS mavericks

Gemma Hampson,
Social Enterprise Magazine

The ‘right to
request’ social enterprise initiative is failing to attract the
interest of frontline health staff dedicated to driving change in the
NHS, according to a leading civil servant at the Department of Health
(DH). Right to request was introduced as part of Lord Darzi’s Next
Stage Review Final Report last year giving all NHS staff the right to
ask their primary care trust board if they can set up a social
enterprise to provide NHS-contracted services.

http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/news/detail/index.asp?id=947

Triodos or Unity
should run social investment bank, says academic

Henry Palmer,
Social Enterprise Magazine

An existing bank with
experience working with social enterprises should run the proposed
social investment wholesale bank, according to a leading third sector
academic. Professor Paul Palmer, professor in voluntary sector
management at City University’s Cass Business School, said any new
financial institution would risk creating yet another level of civil
service-style bureaucracy. Palmer was speaking following the Budget
announcement that the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) would launch a
consultation about the much mooted plans to create an investment bank
using unclaimed assets in dormant bank and building society accounts.

http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/news/detail/index.asp?id=946

Expert Eye: Law

Catherine Rustomji,
Social Enterprise Magazine

Collaborations and
mergers could help social enterprises win new business and battle the
recession – but take care. Catherine Rustomji, of Hempsons
Solicitors, offers expert advice. The intense press reporting of all
things recession-related has not left social enterprises untouched.
Recent reports from the Charity Commission refer to more than half of
charities feeling the effects of the downturn with 64 per cent of
largest charities concerned that future work will be affected. An
increase in the number of third sector organisations choosing to
merge has long been predicted as an immediate response in a
recession.

http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/features/detail/index.asp?id=945

Ethical Property
Company promises part-time office space for charities

David Ainsworth,
Third Sector Online

Hive Network planned
for London, Manchester, Brighton, Oxford and Bath. A third sector
landlord is planning to help start-up social enterprises and small
charities to escape from working in cramped coffee shops and draughty
village halls. The Ethical Property Company is launching a scheme to
offer the sector affordable part-time use of meeting rooms,
conference facilities and shared spaces. The Hive Network, to be
launched in June, will initially have buildings in Oxford and Bath.
More are planned for London, Manchester and Brighton.

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/channels/Finance/Article/901162/Ethical-Property-Company-promises-part-time-office-space-charities/

New financial model
‘will allow charities to compete with construction companies’

David Ainsworth,
Third Sector Online

A Scottish housing
association is pioneering a new financial model it believes will help
charities to compete with construction companies for public building
contracts.
….Hugh Rolo, head of assets and investment at the
Development Trusts Association, said ideas such as this could help
retain more investment in local communities.”The problem the
third sector has at the moment is one of scale,” he said. “We
can’t bid for the biggest contracts. But that will come in time.”
Rolo said his organisation was keen for more charities and social
enterprises to get involved in such contracts.

http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/channels/Finance/Article/901063/New-financial-model-will-allow-charities-compete-construction-companies/

Work scheme targets
young jobless

BBC News Online
Scotland

A new scheme aimed at
creating work for thousands of young Scots has been announced by the
UK Government. Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy said the £95m project
would aim to provide six months paid work for 15,000 young, long-term
unemployed. It is part of a UK-wide initiative called the Future Jobs
Fund announced in last week’s budget. The package will be open to
organisations which prove they can create long-term jobs or training.
 They apply through the department of Work and Pensions
outlining how many and what kind of jobs they hope to create. It is
expected councils and social enterprises will be among the first to
bid for the money.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8021226.stm

Help for small
businesses

BiP Solutions

Public bodies should
take six simple steps to give small business better access to public
contracts, John Swinney said today. Steps include requiring suppliers
to pay sub-contractors within 30 days and using the free web portal
to advertise contracts – Public Contracts Scotland. Finance Secretary
John Swinney has written to Chief Executives and Heads of Procurement
throughout the public sector to promote access to public sector
contracts for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), social
enterprises and third sector bodies.

http://www.bipsolutions.com/cgi-bin/newsroom/newsroom.cgi?action=full_story&act=view_news_list&act2=view_news_list&id=208588&strt=0&searchCriteria=&searchChoice=&sectorToSearch=&startMonth=&startYear=&endMonth=&endYear=&storiesPerPage=10

Darzi invites GP
‘innovators’ to bid for new cash

Gareth Iacobucci,
Pulse

GPs have been invited
to bid for a £220m war-chest of new Government money to encourage
innovation and financial savings in the health service. The cash
injection, first promised to SHAs in Lord Darzi’s next stage
review, has been ring-fenced for projects that deliver ‘a health,
social or financial benefit’.  
….Bids are being welcomed
from the likes of PCOs, GP practices, and social enterprises or
universities if they bid in partnership with an NHS organisation.

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=23&storycode=4122534&c=2

Recession proof

Jenny Clark and
Karl Wilding, Charity Finance

How will the recession
affect the voluntary sector?
….Much of the orthodoxy in recent
years around sustainability has been to increase earned income, a
message the sector has clearly taken on board. Social enterprise
activity is now the norm, with earned income becoming increasingly
important in the funding mix. Although changes in accounting
practices are partly responsible, we estimate earned income increased
from £10.2bn (43 per cent of income) in 2001/02 to £17bn (51.2 per
cent) in 2006/07.

http://www.charityfinance.co.uk/home/content.php?id=2762&pg=17&cat=78

RBS SE100: Health
and social care

Gemma Hampson,
Social Enterprise Magazine

You just have to
compare this month’s growth figures with the last issue of Social
Enterprise, which featured the fastest growing companies in retail
and fair trade. Only three of the top five retail social businesses
had grown, in stark contrast to this month’s top five which have all
grown by at least 30 per cent. Collectively, the top five have an
average growth of a massive 68 per cent. In fact, only two of the 20
social businesses that completed the growth section of this month’s
survey had reduced in size, and even then their reductions were less
than ten per cent.

http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/features/detail/index.asp?id=942

From the Horse’s
Mouth: PR

Lily Lapenna,
Social Enterprise Magazine

Social enterprises are
often forced to do PR on a shoe-string, especially when starting up
but MyBnk founder Lily Lapenna is proof that you can get results with
minimal resources and here she shares her tips. We have chosen to do
our PR in house – we think it’s cheaper and we think we know our
business best. That doesn’t mean we don’t accept help and we’ve used
consultants for advice. We’ve found this really helpful and some will
spend a bit of time with you initially for free. This can be enough
to get some good ideas.

http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/features/detail/index.asp?id=943

Liam’s Got Issues:
April

Liam Black, Social
Enterprise Magazine

Can we really make a
difference? As if, says Liam Black.
….I’m with late leftie
Antonio Gramsci: ‘I’m a pessimist because of intelligence, but an
optimist because of will’. Expect the worst, but work for the best.
We know deep in our hearts that we have grievously hurt our earth.
The hard truth is, it’s worse than when I started. So why keep going?
Partly the answer is ‘what’s the alternative?’. Staying in bed,
getting out only to top up the Jamesons? No. Being involved in social
enterprise is about choosing to live as if we can make a difference;
as if greed and indifference are human aberrations, not the default.

http://www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk/sem/tradingplace/detail/index.asp?id=940Local

Local

East Sussex mental
health service could go

Emily Walker, The
Argus

Mental health patients
could be stripped of a vital service that one patient says saved him
from suicide.

….A spokesman for
the PCT said: “In conjunction with East Sussex Adult Social Care we
are re-organising mental health day services across the county so
that they offer local people much improved care and support which
focuses on recovery, inclusion and a return to employment. “Under
the new set up we will no longer commission day services at New Road
Nurseries as we consider that it does not fit in with the new look
services we plan to offer.  ”However, we feel that the nursery
could have a long term future as a social enterprise, with the
potential for commercial activities at the site to support and
develop the services it presently provides.

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/4323089.East_Sussex_mental_health_service_could_go/

Plan to build
crematorium in Buchan

Jamie Buchan,
Aberdeen Press and Journal

A crematorium could be
built in the Buchan area to help fund a new strategy group, it has
emerged.
….Peterhead Projects has been established to look at
ways of improving the local economy and making the area more
attractive to visitors and businesses. One of its first projects will
be a radical revamp of the town’s under-used Lido. Derek Jennings,
a director of the group, said: “For the first two years we receive
core funding from Aberdeenshire Council, but after that we need to
generate income through social enterprises. “We need to ensure that
the company is self-sufficient and be able to plough profits into the
community.”

http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1185384?UserKey=

Blogs

Community cohesion
is alive and well – no thanks to the government

Dave Clements,
Guardian Joe Public Blog

Are we really living
in a broken society? When we wrote The Future of Community: Reports
of a death greatly exaggerated, we came to a very different
conclusion. As one promotional blurb put it, communities are “alive
and well despite the government’s best efforts”. We were
suspicious of the motives of those who tell us our communities are
broken and that everything is getting worse. As we tried to get
across in the book, this is more an expression of the political
class’s own sense of dislocation from society than an accurate
reflection of real world problems.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2009/apr/28/community-cohesion-race-ethnic-minorities

Why the public
sector needs to improve its contractor handling

Jane Dudman,
Guardian Joe Public Blog

Today’s scathing
report from the Commons public accounts committee (PAC) about the
failure of central government organisations to address the most basic
aspects of getting good value from the £12bn they spend on services,
highlights just what a tough job the Treasury has on its hands as it
attempts to drive through its agenda of greater efficiency and
savings. The report from Edward Leigh’s committee rehearses a
depressingly long and all-too-familiar list of failings. It says
relationships between central government and its external suppliers
remain “too cosy” despite years of competitive
tendering.
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/joepublic/2009/apr/28/policy-public-finance

Of
general interest

Politics:

Flawed attempt to
force social change

Nicholas Timmins,
Financial Times

The equality bill
suggests it is possible to legislate to “narrow the gap between
rich and poor”, as Harriet Harman put it on Monday. But at a time
when the government is already set to miss other self-imposed targets
for improving social and economic conditions, lawyers were sceptical
that public bodies could be ordered to help change society. The
legislation forces public sector organisations to “consider
reducing socio-economic inequalities”. It comes as the government
is introducing a statutory requirement for future governments to
eliminate child poverty, yet Labour is likely to fall well short of
its own interim target of halving it by 2010.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/055cb88c-3382-11de-8f1b-00144feabdc0.html

Business:

Tesco is ‘losing UK
market share’

BBC News Online

UK supermarket giant Tesco has lost market share to
discounters Aldi and Lidl as consumers cut back on spending. Tesco’s
share of the UK market dropped to 30.4% in March, from 30.8% a year
before, according to research firm TNS. Tesco’s share has dropped on
an annual basis in every month this year. Of the other “big
four” Sainsbury’s was flat while Asda and Morrisons gained
share. Wal-Mart-owned Asda moved to its record share of the UK
market, up to 17.5% from 17.1%.  Meanwhile, Waitrose saw its
market share fall.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/dorset/8023250.stm

Environment:

Unlikely allies at
last: Prince and Pope

Peter Popham, The
Independent

Throughout the last
500 years the Vatican and the Royal Family have had their share of
disagreements. Not least about wives. But yesterday they were as one.
Both about wives, and perhaps more importantly, about the future of
the planet. Protocol would normally dictate that Prince Charles, on
his third visit to the Vatican, would initially meet Pope Benedict
without the Duchess of Cornwall. But protocol was waived to enable
them to meet the Pope together, instead of the Duchess coming in at
the end.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/unlikely-allies-at-last-prince-and-pope-1675177.html

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