Spark 09 Events
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The launch was held at the house of st barnabas soho, a social enterprise events venue that has also won a place in the competition. The purpose was to bring together CEOs and representatives from all 15 winning organisations with the Spark partners in order to outline the spark journey ahead of them.
Spark is more than a grants opportunity, and has been designed to build social enterprises through thorough business planning, financial frameworks training and to respond to the internal and external problems they will face as small businesses. The launch was therefore framed to introduce the personnel who will be guiding the winners through this process and preparation, as well as introducing the spreadsheets they would work on and the panel who they will later pitch to for their cash investment.
The response was great and as Louise Atherton of Wigan Housing Solutions said: ‘We were quite blown away and very surprised to win. For us, the real value will be in networking because of all the experience and expertise on offer.’
In the afternoon the winners met with representatives from the Department of Communities and Local Government, the lead partner on Spark, along with Steve Mathers of Places for People, Philip Wright of PricewaterhouseCoopers and high-profile social entrepreneurs John Montague of TREES and Nigel Kershaw of Big Issue Invest. This provided a tangible opportunity to understand how Spark works behind the scenes and understanding why all the partners have come together to create this unique opportunity for the fifteen winners.
Another participant, Jon Cox of Spark Fabrications and Framing responded to the workshop by saying: ‘Spark is a first class opportunity to gain knowledge and skills, and we’re really looking forward to working with our consultants and corporate partners.’
The Spark team were delighted to meet and welcome all the participants onto the programme, and to introduce themselves and the support network that will allow the enterprises to meet challenges and be best placed to get the money they need. The next newsletter will explain more about the value and experience of learning to pitch your social enterprise, with case studies from John Hamblin of last year’s winner Shekinah and tips from our lead consultant, Matt Knopp.
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