S2S 2011: A Taste of Honey and an excuse to quote Morrissey

Yes, we may be hidden by rags
But we’ve something they’ll never have
Oh, the good life is out there somewhere…

The Smiths Hand in Glove

The 2011 S2S fair at the Corn Exchange in Edinburgh was busy and well received. TMP’s very own Jolene Cargill, tweeting as@ mediawummin, said, Excellent #S2S today learned 12 secrets to successful business and a bit of sign language in between meeting interesting #socents

Others commenting on Twitter seem to have mostly enjoyed the Engine Shed brownies, the British Sign Language workshop run by Deaf Action and the smoothie bike at the Healthy n Happy Enterprises stall.

Also  food related, I was particularly pleased to find the Claverhouse Honey stall.  I visited Claverhouse (on an industrial estate on the outskirts of Dundee) on a study visit arranged by the Edinburgh Social Enterprise Network on a chilly October day last year and saw a couple of hives tucked away in the very wintery garden, so it was great to see them actually selling honey, not to mention getting a taste.

I was also at the S2S fair itself courtesy of Edinburgh Social Enterprise Network, who in turn were there thanks to a sponsored stall from the City of Edinburgh Council.  The Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition are reporting that Cllr Tom Buchanan said Social enterprises are just as important an element of Edinburgh’s economic structure as our high profile businesses.

My hour on the Edinburgh SEN stall gave me some time to chat to the lovely Josiah Lockhart of the Grassmarket Community Project.  They have exciting building development plans underway and have just been granted planning permission for a new building, with ground source heating and a green roof, in the heart of Edinburgh’s World Heritage Site – with not even one objection.

Great as it was to see the amazing range of social enterprises in Scotland, and to chat to interesting people creating social change, and to catch up with friends and colleagues, the next step for S2S must be to make the event more public.  People outside the social enterprise sector need to be shown all that social enterprise can achieve.

Otherwise, we may find that a taste of honey is all that we get as we pride ourselves every year that though we may be hidden by rags, we have something they’ll never have….

The Noble Ox defeats Gollum

A Guest Post by Jane Riddell on a free marketing surgery with fellow TMP member Charlotte Halliday of Noble Ox.

I was apprehensive before my session with Noble Ox. I am currently setting up an editing service, in the knowledge I have difficulty promoting myself and anything to do with negotiating fees makes me cringe.

Charlotte is warm and easy to talk to. Within minutes I was describing the Gollum perched on my shoulder telling me it’s not nice to charge for services and questioning my self-worth. Her helpful response was that I should learn to distinguish between me and the service I’m providing. This won’t happen overnight but I can see the sense in it.

Over our consultation, Charlotte took me back a few stages, talking about the importance of clarity in what I am offering: my work ethos, credentials, why people might choose me rather than similar businesses, the information I might include on my website. She explained the need for cohesion in any promotional materials. My business card with its autumnal scene might be pretty but has no link with editing. Ironically, now I remember making a similar comment to a writer, but for some reason hadn’t applied it to my own situation.

Charlotte combines an approachable manner with clear advice. She is quick to comment on what’s strong, and gently points out what might not be working so well. Before we finished, I had a mental note to do the following:

• Prepare information about me, my services, experience, qualifications etc.
• Re-design my website to reflect what I can offer
• Have stronger links between the website and blogs
• Redo my business card
• Check out further the going hourly rate for editing

The time with Charlotte was well spent and I left feeling energised and keen to move on to the next steps.

International Women’s Day

A guest post by Capri Ross-Williams, Marketing and PR Intern at The Melting Pot.

One of the loos at The Melting Pot features a couple of whiteboards where members and visitors can discuss what’s on their minds. To celebrate the 100th year of International Women’s Day, The Melting Pot asked members throughout the month of March to nominate their female role models on the boards. As always the TMP community threw up some interesting and amusing opinions and suggestions, from Indira Gandhi (the first female Prime Minister of India) to Margaret Thatcher (the first female Prime Minister of the UK) and Elizabeth Taylor to Dame Edna.

So for those who did not recognise all of the names on the board, here is a quick rundown of some.

Vandana Shiva is a philosopher, environmental activist, and eco feminist. Shiva, currently based in Delhi, has authored more than 20 books and over 500 papers in leading scientific and technical journals.

Elsie Inglis was an innovative Scottish doctor and suffragist. She worked to set up the Scottish Women’s Hospitals. When Elsie first suggested teams of women doctors and nurses be sent to the Western Front during the Great War, the War Office replied ‘My good lady, go home and sit still.’ Undaunted, Elsie raised thousands of pounds and worked to set up the Scottish Women’s Hospitals Unit. It provided medical units staffed by women in France, Russia, Corsica, Romania and Serbia. Elsie went to work with her teams of nurses in Serbia.

Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays. Her writings on various social, environmental and political issues have been a subject of major controversy in India.

Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born English feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave. He is most widely remembered for his 1968 film if…., which won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival.

Helena Kennedy is one of Britain’s most distinguished lawyers. She has spent her professional life giving voice to those who have least power within the system, championing civil liberties and promoting human rights.

Not to be left out, we also asked for your favourite feminist men that resulted in a chuckling response that included Berlusconi, Don Juan and Hugh Hefner to name but a few.

Only makes me wonder what the Melting Pot community will come up with next time.

The Big Jelly

Hot on the heels of our busiest ever Edinburgh Jelly the previous day, last Friday, 25 March, I attended the very first BIG Jelly day. It brought together home workers, freelancers, co-workers, workspace owners and Jelly organisers in Ironbridge Gorge; the site of the first Industrial Revolution. Speakers including Fay Easton, Emma Jones and Daniel Priestley argued that we are now at the start of a second working revolution, in which everyone is connected to everyone else all of the time.

It was very much not a social enterprise or even ethical business event – hey, did you know you can have your own business just through buying really cheap stuff from China on alibaba.com and sell it on at a profit? Hmmm, let’s not worry about how come the really cheap stuff is really cheap… That aside, some really interesting ideas about creating a ‘micro-niche’ business, exporting to the world from your kitchen table and ‘productising’ yourself and your expertise.

I had the opportunity to talk to plenty of people who currently work from home and ask them what they find difficult. Essentially, it’s children, other domestic distractions, cluttered space and isolation. The most interesting thing for me was meeting other Jelly organisers. Turns out everyone does it slightly differently and for different reasons. Turns out that’s fine. One woman looking to set up a new Jelly asked me how much research I’d done before ours started and was a wee bit surprised that the answer was precisely none.

What with a lovely buzzy yet hard-working atmosphere at The Melting Pot for our Jelly on Thursday, followed by plenty of chat and interesting people at the Big Jelly on the Friday, it seems co-working might be the next business revolution.

Paid student internships

Back to Mansfield Traquair again yesterday for the launch of Third Sector Internships Scotland.  It’s a national programme, open to all students at Scottish Universities, on a competitive basis.  The aim is to increase students’ employability and to encourage them to think about a career in the third sector.  There’s already been a successful pilot programme, involving TMP’s very own Phyl Meyer as a consultant, and we heard from a student and a third sector organisation about their experiences.

Unlike most internships, these are paid – making them a much more attractive proposition for students and organisations.  As well as a salary for the student for up to 12 weeks full time work, the programme will also offer capacity building and advice to organisations on potential internships.

The programme runs for four years and there’s more information at www.qmu.ac.uk/tsis

Incidentally, did you know that Queen Margaret University was founded 135 years ago as the Edinburgh School of Cookery, with a mission to offer education to women and to address the problem of Scotland’s poor diet?

Chill winds in the third sector

I attended the 67^th Annual General Meeting of SCVO (Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations) yesterday at the Mansfield Traquair Centre.  To make this more exciting than it sounds, the day included a programme of events, beginning with a tour of Phoebe Traquair’s stunning murals.  These were painted over 6 years in the 1890s and restored from 2003-5, with the whole immense space cleaned by hand with cotton wool.  Once every month there’s a Sunday open afternoon (1pm – 4pm), with the next one being on 12 December – well worth a look.

http://www.mansfieldtraquair.org.uk/support/open.shtml

From the legal advice session I learnt that it is legal to give alcohol as a prize in a tombola as long as it’s a full, unopened bottle which is taken away and not drunk on the premises; that an organisation can be taken to an employment tribunal by someone it has never employed, and that an organisation can call itself the such-and-such Trust without any constitutional implications.  From the funding advice session I learnt that ‘outcomes are the new black’.

Much of the talk at the AGM proper was inevitably around the current challenging times.  Some speakers saw positives in the sector’s resilience, innovation and resourcefulness, arguing that organisations accustomed to being short of cash and to doing more with less are well placed to cope.  By the end of the AGM I started to wonder if we were doing our bit by saving on fuel costs, as the audience put their coats back on and rubbed their hands together for warmth.

The other topic was of course the ‘Big Society’ – with speakers talking about the third sector being ‘flavour of the month’ in political circles, but the danger that the government expects to get services for free.  Guest lecturer Lucy McTernan, CEO of Citizens Advice Scotland, spoke of her concern that for the UK coalition government ‘Big Society’ is shorthand for ‘small state’.  She called on the voluntary sector to demonstrate collective assertiveness, to push back instead of freaking out – a Keep Calm and Carry On for our times.

The Fred Edwards Trust

Last month I attended the launch of the Fred Edwards Trust, in the book-lined Playfair Library Hall at the University of Edinburgh.  Surrounded by stern-faced marble busts of men with whiskers (and one woman, no whiskers) a packed audience was introduced to the new Trust and heard an inaugural lecture by Professor Aubrey Manning, “Only Connect: is a sustainable human ecology possible?”

Fred Edwards was director of social services for Strathclyde – the biggest social service organisation in Europe – in the 1970s and 1980s.  Scottish law and the political climate at the time made it possible for his department actively to promote social change and social justice.   On retirement he volunteered for a number of Scottish environmental charities and gained a qualification in ecology.

Following his example, the Trust has been set up to promote active citizenship with a particular focus on individuals helping to make Scotland a better place.  They have identified four principles for the Trust’s work: social justice, ecological integrity, economic literacy and a global world view.  The Chair, Professor Sandy Cameron, spoke at the launch of their belief that “anyone can lead”, and the trust defines a leader as “anybody, anywhere, at any level who takes an initiative.”

The Trust plans to do this by setting up a programme of Action Learning Sets, to support the development and empowerment of active citizens.  Action Learning Sets bring together small groups of people, supported by a trained facilitator, in a peer to peer mentoring group.  The principle is that individuals are best placed to resolve their own issues; we don’t need advice or experts to tell us what to do, but we sometimes need help to find the solutions.

The Trust is now looking for participants and volunteer facilitators.  At The Melting Pot, we hope that we will be able to support them by offering meeting space for one of the Action Learning Sets.  After all, this workspace is full of passionate individuals working to make the world a better place.

Professor Aubrey Manning closed his lecture with a quotation from Edmund Burke: Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

www.frededwardstrust.org.uk