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Social Enterprise Coalition activity 
Enter the UK Social Enterprise Awards Organisations and individuals can now enter the Social Enterprise Awards, the nationwide competition that celebrates the work and achievements of the UK’s most inspiring and successful social enterprises and people in the movement. The awards are this year being sponsored by O2. Seven categories are open to applicants: - Social Enterprise of the Year – from within the UK
- Start Up Social Enterprise – an organisation that has been operating for up to two years
- Young Person’s Social Enterprise – a young people-led business or project (including activities by schools, colleges and universities)
- Social Enterprise Leader – an individual that is working for an organisation (paid or voluntary) and is proving to be an inspirational role model
- Social Enterprise Mark Holder – an organisation that holds the social enterprise mark
- Social Enterprise Unsung Hero – a person who is championing social enterprise as a way of doing business
- Social Enterprise Partner - a public or private sector organisation that has partnered with a social enterprise
The winners will be decided by a panel of expert judges and announced at an evening ceremony to be held at the Indigo O2 venue in London on 30 March 2011, following the close of Voice11 at the O2. The Social Enterprise Coalition is working with partners in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to organise the awards. Previous awards winners include BikeWorks, Global Ethics, PACK-IT, and Brighter Future Workshops and Holbrook Centre for Autism. More information is available on the Social Enterprise Coalition website where you can also register your interest in Voice11.
 Highlights from Social Enterprise Day 2010 Thursday 18 November was a day of celebration and profile-raising for social enterprises across the country as they opened their doors on Social Enterprise Day, as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week. In locations including Birmingham, Southampton and Camden in London, social enterprises welcomed the public, politicians and business people in support of SEC's 'It's time to meet you local social enterprise' campaign. A number of Government ministers made the most of the opportunity to get out and about on the day, including Nick Hurd MP who dropped in at Walmer Road School to visit a project being run by social enterprise P3. Paul Burstow MP visited HCT and Lynne Featherstone MP wrote this blog post following her visit to the Selby Centre. On the day SEC rallied more support for the Public Services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) bill which was debated in Parliament the following day, on 19 November. Members of the social enterprise community gathered in a chilly Victoria Tower Gardens to pose for photographs with Chris White MP, who tabled the proposed legislation, before going into Parliament to lobby their MPs to support the bill. The hard work by all in the movement to lend their weight behind this bill paid dividends because the next day, after four hours of debate, MPs voted in favour of the progression of the bill to committee stage. If passed, public sector contracts will be required to deliver positive social, economic and environmental outcomes in communities. SEC’s CEO Peter Holbrook posted a blog at the end of the week to celebrate the outcome - read his post here. In the media SEC appeared on the front page of the Guardian, in the Sun, Daily Mail and Peter Holbrook was invited onto BBC Radio Five Live to talk about social enterprise. For a round up of some of the other activity that took place across the UK on the day visit Social Enterprise Live.
Last chance to vote for your favourite social enterprise snap Eleven photographs which capture business at its best are going head to head in an online public vote to be crowned the winner of a national photography competition. ‘Social Vision: business at its best’ seeks to find images that show the unique and transformative work of social enterprise. Visit www.socialenterpriselive.com/competition to vote for your favourite finalist. The poll closes at 5pm on Friday 26 November. Now in its third year, the competition is for the first time being jointly run by Triodos Bank and theSocial Enterprise Coalition in association with Social Enterprise Magazine and the regional social enterprise networks of England. The winner will be announced at an evening reception in London on Tuesday 30 November.
Your views wanted! Social enterprise collective purchasing Are you involved in ‘collective purchasing’, for example with third sector organisations, to secure better deals for the disadvantaged or vulnerable people? Do you work with other social enterprises to buy products or services together? Is this something that you would consider doing? If you have answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, please contact jon.woolfson@socialenterprise.org.uk to help us influence government opinion. Social finance information Have you been seeking information about financing your social enterprise? What kind of information have you found and what else would you find useful? Has a lack of comparative information hindered your search for social finance? Your experiences could help us develop relevant solutions. Please contact jon.woolfson@socialenterprise.org.uk. Modernising commissioning Green Paper
The Government is preparing a modernising commissioning Green Paper which will feed into the reform White Paper in the new year. SEC will be feeding into this. The key areas the paper is looking at include: In which public service areas could Government create new opportunities for civil society organisations to deliver? How could Government make existing public service markets more accessible to civil society organisations? How could commissioners use assessments of full social, environmental and economic value to inform their commissioning decisions? And how could civil society organisations support greater citizen and community involvement in all stages of the commissioning? If you would like to feed in please contact ceri.jones@socialenterprise.org.uk
News Parliament’s first ever onsite nursery is a social enterprise In a jam-packed ceremony this week, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harriet Harman, Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson and Conservative MP Eleanor Laing joined the House of Commons Speaker John Bercow to officially open the doors to the first ever onsite nursery, forty years after the idea was first raised. The nursery at No 1 Parliament Street, managed by leading childcare charity and social enterprise London Early Years Foundation (LEYF), will make childcare facilities available to members and their staff, staff of the House of Commons and PICT. Speaker Bercow celebrated the landmark achievement: “I am delighted that the first nursery for the House of Commons was completed and ready for occupation on budget and on time. It is a delightful facility that will provide excellent childcare in comfortable, stimulating and secure surroundings. LEYF CEO, June O’Sullivan, added: “As an organisation very much born and bred in Westminster, we were naturally thrilled to have been awarded such a ground-breaking opportunity earlier this year. “To now officially celebrate the opening of such a fantastic new space for children at the heart of British government, we are absolutely delighted.” To view some photos from the opening visit the LEYF Flickr stream. For more on this story visit Social Enterprise Live.
The Social Enterprise Mark on You Tube The Social Enterprise Mark has launched a You Tube channel featuring the stories of twelve Mark holders, including London’s largest social enterprise GLL. F ilming continues and soon to join will be the stories of the National Wood Recycling Project and LEYF…. watch this space! The charitable trust Agored Cymru based in Wales has just been awarded the Mark, making them the 300th Social Enterprise Mark holder. For more information on how to become a Social Enterprise Mark holder visit www.socialenterprisemark.org or telephone the helpline on 0845 504 6536.
Consultations 
Office for Civil Society consultation on improving support for frontline civil society organisations - open until 6 January 2011
On 14 October the Office for Civil Society launched a consultation to get your thoughts and ideas on the role it can play in ensuring that civil society in England has the advice, support and influence that will help it to modernise and respond to change. The consultation asks for your specific feedback on proposals in six key areas: - Easier access to advice through online services
- Access to wider sources of support, particularly from the private sector
- Direct support to frontline organisations through bursaries
- Consolidation of support services through merger and collaboration
- Better local public sector partnerships
- Better partnerships between Central Government and national infrastructure organisations.
Visit www.strongercivilsociety.org.uk to find out more, download the consultation document and send your response. To stay updated, and discuss the consultation before you respond:
Events 
Footsey 2010 2 December
Doncaster
Join several hundred delegates and exhibitors to trade, learn and network at Footsey 2010. Footsey 2010 will feature the biggest programme of workshops in its nine year history. Topics to be covered include: - Successful Procurement Models
- Personalisation Agenda – a Local Authority Perspective
- Successful Partnership Working Across The Three Sectors
- Social Growth – ‘Making The Big Society more than just a slogan’
- How to Sell Added Social Value to the Public Sector.
- Asset transfer opportunities for community enterprises.
And don't forget - Footsey also includes a panel discussion with national policymakers and our very own Dragons' Den! Whether for business or knowledge development you need to be at Footsey 2010 Book your place now at www.footsey.org.uk/register or by calling 0114 279 6511 ext. 3429. Footsey is organised by Yorkshire and the Humber Forum, the Development Trusts Association, SEYH, and Goodwin Development Trust working with Maire McCarthy Projects.
Collaboration Support Skills for Development Workers Bassac is offering a free two day training course called collaboration support skills for development workers. It's aimed specifically at development workers and will aim to give you the practical know-how to support collaboration and help the organisations you work with to collaborate successfully. The course will be taking place in the following locations on the following dates. For more information and to book a place visit the bassac website.
Resources 
Nominations to the Arthur Guinness Fund 2010 closing soon The nomination process for the Arthur Guinness Fund 2010 closes on Tuesday 30 November. The Arthur Guinness Fund is looking for the next generation of social and ethical entrepreneurs and businesses and want to hear from entrepreneurs around the world interested in receiving support to fund community and local neighborhood projects. Developed to carry-on the philanthropic legacy of Arthur Guinness, The Arthur Guinness Fund has partnered with Ashoka, the world’s leading community of social entrepreneurs, to enable the deployment of the funds to new social entrepreneurial projects around the world. Check out www.guinnessforgood.com for more information.
Member profile 
Slivers-of-Time Slivers-of-Time Ltd is a social enterprise based in East London. The company emerged from a government funded programme to create new types of marketplaces that tackle pressing economic issues. They have developed a flexible work system, which allows people to sell their labour in small blocks of time. The approach is being trialled by Tesco and the government are planning to incorporating elements of it into their welfare reforms. www.slivers.com/
Jobs  Advertise your social enterprise job here!
Advertise and search for jobs on the number one social enterprise job page. Social Enterprise Coalition members get great deals on advertising rates and it's easy to get your job uploaded to allow you to focus on running your business. For more information email James Yabut at james.yabut@socialenterprise.org.uk or visit our job page.
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It has been a busy fall! Jason Benedict and I developed the curriculum for the entrepreneurship training course in Rwanda, and have traveled there six times in the past few months in order to launch the program. It has been exciting to teach the first cohort at the Business Development Center in Kigali, and we look forward to seeing the new businesses our students at the BDC will start in the coming months. 
Much has happened in the first half of our 16-week entrepreneurship training program at the Business Development Center Rwanda. Our students are progressing rapidly with their business ideas: during the first half of the course, they generated and assessed the feasibility of many creative, ambitious business ideas; weeks eight and nine focused on refining these ideas. Our visiting executives helped tremendously in this task.
Andrew Root, Regent MBA ’94, spoke to about 60 senior bankers, CEO’s, government, education, NGO, and business leaders about Global Capital Markets one Wednesday evening in late October, and then gave a workshop on financial analysis to about 90 professionals and educators the following morning. It was a big hit!
