| Spark Newsletter: BT Spark Challenges + Sparklers Triumph! We've already reached the end of September with both Spark and Sparklers seeing new investment into their businesses and business ideas. Most of the 15 winning Spark enterprises have also completed their Spark Challenge, spending 2.5 days learning and gaining commercial and business skills from one of the three corporate partners; Places for People, BT and PricewaterhouseCoopers. We bring you their stories and excitement: Make sure you stay up to date with the leaders of social enterprise who are working to help make homelessness history! Forward the newsletter to others, visit the website, and follow us on Twitter! There will be more exclusives from our corporate partners, more stories of commercial success and much much more from the entrepreneurial Sparklers! If you have any questions or feedback, please don't hesitate to email me on info@sparkchallenge.org. Regards, Angelina Purcell and the Spark team 
THE BREAKING STORIES Clare Parker, Networks Business Manager at BT on meeting Bike It The BT Spark event in mid August was the first opportunity where our BT team and the social enterprise we had been paired up with were able to meet. Our BT team was matched with a social enterprise called BikeIt. BikeIt specialise in developing the soft skills and presenting new opportunities to the young socially excluded in Newcastle. They achieve this through teaching young people who have experienced homelessness, skills in the delivery of Bike Ability courses, community work and cycle maintenance. I felt this was a good match for me for two main reasons. Firstly, I am also from Newcastle and therefore feel passionate about helping this particular community. Secondly, last year also for Spark, I was fortunate to work with a similar organisation called Bikeworks in London, therefore, providing the perfect opportunity to apply what I had learnt. Our BT team was asked to help BikeIt address a business challenge. However, after some discussion, actually narrowing down to a specific challenge proved rather difficult to achieve in such a short time. Therefore, we have agreed with BikeIt to apply a business modelling tool we use at BT to help identify and analyse the main opportunities and challenges for BikeIt. We are going to share and develop this with BikeIT so that we can work together in helping BikeIt successfully focus on the most promising future opportunities. We aim to have completed the initial modelling before the main face to face workshops in early October, therefore, ensuring that will be able to focus on all the right areas and make a greater difference. Personally, it has already made me appreciate the skills and tools I use on a daily basis at BT and to some extent taken for granted. My overall objective is to make a clear positive difference to BikeIt and I believe by beginning to share my corporate experience and Spark experience from last year, I can start to do this. I already know from my experience last year and already this year, that this provides a significant learning opportunity: The challenges of a different environment to the BT norm; a new social context and tight timescales provide a good basis. I am still in touch with social enterprise I worked with last year and I fully expect that the formally arranged workshops will only be the tip of the iceberg of a longer engagement with BikeIt. Dynamic developments: BT's Spark Challenge with First Fruit Warehousing James Riley reports The response from First Fruit is unanimous: "Really great few days from BT!" The Spark Challenge helped us focus on a new opportunity in plastics recycling that came our way recently; an opportunity for single stream waste plastics materials for balling and exporting. In our sessions the team helped us find solutions to some of the sticky issues around the opportunity and to get clarification on implementation and staff requirements. They provided: - A new cashflow forecast and project activity plan.
- A critical milestone map
- A full risk analysis
- The offer of a a project manager for the set up process – fantastic!!
Final words: "I was really impressed by their focus and commitment and what they were able to produce within the time scale and their current workload. Since the session we've been able to action many of the recommendations and once we have landlords confirmation and contracts signed we will be able to start receiving plastics to bulk up on site." Sparklers in the news, receiving seed funding and blogging live! Our favourite 7 social entrepreneurs in the making have been very busy of late! They submitted their business plans to partners, the Department of Communities and Local Government and the TREES group, and each received seed funding to pilot their products, test the market and buy stocks and resources. See CLG's press release for full details: Click to view Totally of their own volition, the Sparklers are also now blogging and as you'll see, they've been featured in the Big Issue and reporting on other exciting developments their companies are experiencing. Spark Partners - Who are the Spark Partners? Spark has been developed by Communities and Local Government and three Social Enterprise Champions: TREES Group, Eastside Consulting and the Big Issue Invest (part of the Big Issue Group). Spark is the first partnership of its kind between the public, the private and the third sectors for homelessness. We welcome: Places for People, BT and PricewaterhouseCoopers as Spark Challenge partners. Read more about the Partners of Spark
Sparklers The Sparklers programme is aimed at individual entrepreneurs who have an idea for a new business venture or those who have already developed an early stage business. Applicants should be currently homeless or have been homeless in the last two years. The Sparkler programme is a 6 month business support programme to help you develop your business proposal. There is also a small cash prize that can be used to start or develop your project.
Social Enterprises - what is social enterprise? Social enterprises are profit-making organisations which reinvest the majority of their profits for the benefit of their community, to tackle social and environmental problems. Learn more about social enterprise Learn how social enterprise can be used to tackle homelessness | 
1 Comments:
Get discount coupons for Allied Cash Advance and other Shelbyville IN local. $250000 Pre-Approved Unsecured Cash Advance In 72 Hours - Unsecured Cash.
Post a Comment
<< Home