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”!

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

Collaboration: an essential for sustainable practices?
London, 12th February, 14:00 – 17:30

What are the recent experiences and best practices from public and private sectors?
How can organisations collaborate for greater impact?

There is a dramatic increase in attempts (and directives) to collaborate – both internally as well as externally. Open Minds has undertaken research in relation to this theme to establish, from people’s real experiences, insights and guiding principles that might help in ensuring the best possibility of collaborative efforts being successful.

Examples from UK public and private sectors as well as from India are
showing that collaboration, rather than competition, is proving to be a
far more effective strategy than competition.

Effective collaboration is going to be essential in helping address
some of the more complex challenges both within and between
organisations as well as in the broader sustainability field. We are
also keen to see how complexity science principles might help underpin
such attempts.

ASP collaborates with Open Minds and The Environment Council to run a half-day workshop in London on February 12th

Contributors (speakers)
Simon Hamilton, Director and Founder of Three Hands
Mike Jones, Director Learning & Leadership, Open Minds
Mark Lawrence, Head of UK Operations (logistics), Marks & Spencer
Sian Peake-Jones, Director and Founder Open Minds

Objectives
Identify the growing need for more successful forms of collaboration
Explore Open Minds’ research findings
Share participants’ own learnings and experiences
Understand the Open Minds’ Learning Network
Create connections

Outcomes
Participants will:
Understand how sustainability practices are inherently dependent upon new collaborative models
Learn about the research open Minds has undertaken collaboration:
The importance of Context
Logic as an inhibitor
The role of relationships and connectivity (and the strength of ‘weak’ ties)
Bounded freedom – unleashing the magic of self-organisation
Uncertainty as a given – ‘Black Swans’ (and staying open to surprises)
Edge effects – interfaces and boundaries as source of innovation and breakthroughs
Patterns and success indicators – recognising what’s in the process of breaking down as well what is breaking through
Share their experiences and learn collectively from others
Understand the distinctions between collaborations in different sectors  

Participants will be:
CSR and sustainability practitioners
Stakeholder engagement and communications practitioners
Academics working on related topics

Click here to find out more > > >

Several million ethical consumers offer two ways to boost your business prosperity…

There is a new Ethical Junction member company going live very soon. It is called Your Ethical Startup (YES Club) and will be encouraging people to set up their own ethical businesses. Don’t worry! – rather than creating competition for existing Ethical Junction members, it will be focused on increasing awareness among consumers of the need to spend their budgets more thoughtfully from now on. In this way, YES Club is intended to create MORE business for existing ethical traders. It is also designed to enable more mutual support between ethical enterprises, this will be facilitated by the YES Forum, to be launched at the same time as YES Club.

YES has something you might find extremely
interesting: access to several million ethical consumers. If you would
like to attract some of these to your business as paying customers via
the new company, you might wish to consider the following:

1. Offering a discount to YES Club and YES
   Forum members. A discount offered at the YES launch could win you many
   new customers who will stay with you for years to come.
2. Running an event – perhaps a seminar,
   workshop or conference – during Spring or Summer of 2009. Again, YES
   members would need to be offered a discount. If you can trade it, you
   can teach it – why not open up a whole new revenue stream? And if
   you’re already running courses or other events, then this is your
   chance to promote them to several million new ethically-aware customers.
   

Please let us know as soon as possible if you
are interested in participating – the YES website launches shortly and
we would like to include as many special discounts and events as
possible.

Please contact YES here: info@ecobloomfield.com

Fantastic Opportunity – Calling all eco designers and makers…

Want to get involved in a co-operative venture to run an eco friendly shop in central London on Westbourne Grove (off Portobello Road) for a shared rent of just £60.00 per week over the Christmas period?

Then look no further, Sarah Baulch and Lisa Harland are setting up Our Eco Shop for the second year running at 303 Westbourne Grove (opposite Paul Smith) over the next two weeks. We are looking for likeminded designer-makers to be involved in opening and manning the shop for 9 weeks leading up to christmas. Rent is shared equally between all involved and all monies on each sale goes to the individual designer.

We will dress shop, change the windows, deal with payments, press and marketing, etc, organise a fabulous opening party and ensure it all runs smoothly. The shop measures 14 by 6 metres and is double fronted with a further generous retail space in its basement.

Our aim is to create a ‘Green Boutique’ full of the great and good from the eco friendly world, with a kind of vintage vibe in terms of the shops décor – all display furniture painted white, white washed walls and natural wood where possible.

Visit our website for more details and to see lasts years temporary shop which Lisa ran.

If you would like to display flyers in the shop, at £5 plus VAT per week, email katie@onegreenearth or call 07760 444415.

The deadline is this Thursday, the 16th October and we aim to be open on the 24th October. Monies due on the 17th October, contracts offered.

For more information call Sarah on 07949 1170381 or email slb@sarahlouisebaulch.co.uk

This is being organised (beautifully) by two EJ members: Harlands Organic Furnishings and Revampt.

Ideas For Greener Living

UK AWARE is a social enterprise events organiser staging the UK’s largest Greener Living Expo of this generation.

UK AWARE will save you money, help you make positive lifestyle changes and inspire you. Our show presents options in a simple and understandable way. 

Low-carbon living will save you money and you’ll feel good about doing the right thing. UK AWARE illustrates how modern life and low-carbon living can work together, without a single mention of yoghurt weaving techniques. 

Come and talk face to face with people who know the answers to your questions and can give you simple solutions.  Our exhibitors have some really exciting things to show you and tell you about and our speakers are some of the best in the world and we promise they will talk in a language we can all understand.

Feel free to drop us an e-mail or give us a call. We’re always interested in what you have to say.

Danny, Jodie and the UK AWARE team.