Spark Enterprise

BCHA are encouraging people to get on their bike during National Bike Week

BCHA are encouraging people to reduce their carbon footprint and enjoy the fresh seaside air by getting on their bike for National Bike Week, during 18th – 26th June.

Don’t have a bike? Not a problem. BCHA have established a new social enterprise – The Wheelie Great Bike Store (WGBS) which has opened this week and is offering people the chance to buy reconditioned, serviced bikes at affordable prices.

WGBS is situated at 15 Lansdowne Road, a bright and inviting shop with a viewing gallery, where customers are able to watch the bike mechanics hard at work.

Staff of WGBS are Cytech qualified bike mechanics who can advise about each purchase and provide a maintenance facility where people can get their bikes fixed and serviced. To contact WGBS and book your bike in for a service, please call 01202 310400.

WGBS is proud to be working with Anthony Revell, Co-owner of locally founded company Stolen Bike Co. The only highstreet stockist of Dephect merchandise in Dorset; the shop also stocks new products for the skate and BMX scene, with brands including, Globe and New Era.

WGBS is a fantastic new initiative in Bournemouth which reduces landfill, encourages cycling for a healthier lifestyle and will provide training, jobs and volunteer roles to complement Government unemployment initiatives.

This social enterprise has been made possible thanks to funding from the Spark Challenge, a pioneering development and investment programme that aims to inspire organisations to build social enterprises that will prevent and tackle homelessness using sustainable business models.

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Merseyside Project of the Year - HOME Wins Double Spirit of Merseyside Awards

Local Social Enterprise, HOME by MerseySTRIDE won a double dose of success at The Spirit of Merseyside Awards.

The Spirit of Merseyside Awards was hosted by the Community Foundation for Merseyside and compared by Liverpool’s own comedian, actor and writer Neil Fitzmaurice at Liverpool’s Philharmonic Hall.

MerseySTRIDE (front row) with Mark Newton Jones (C.E.O. Shop Direct) and Roger Phillips (Radio Merseyside)

The Project of the Year, for the project making the greatest difference to people’s lives in Merseyside was awarded to HOME by MerseySTRIDE, sponsored by Liverpool One. MerseySTRIDE CIC had, earlier in the night, already won The Employable Communities Award, which was sponsored by Shop Direct Group.

This inspirational social enterprise creates jobs, volunteering, training and personal development opportunities for people who are long term unemployed and especially those with homeless backgrounds.

HOME by MerseySTRIDE builds high quality furniture which they sell at low cost to the public, housing associations, hostels and community projects. Building and selling the furniture helps create jobs, work experience and volunteering opportunities for people who are long term unemployed and especially those with homeless backgrounds. Profits from the sale of the furniture helps fund the work they do.

In the last 18 months HOME by MerseySTRIDE have created 100 jobs, 30 volunteering positions and have recently won a contract with Merseyside Probation to work with eight people per day on Community Payback Schemes.

“It was a great honour to win the first award, but we were amazed to win the second. There are so many good projects and people who are really making a difference in Merseyside, so to win the Best Project in Merseyside Award was amazing” said Paul Brown, Managing Director and Founder of HOME by MerseySTRIDE.

“Come and visit us. See for yourself the great work we are doing and the fantastic furniture we sell. Our furniture doesn’t come to you as flat-pack, because we build it for you, right here at HOME. It’s furniture with a conscience. We really are building furniture, re-building lives.” said Paul Brown, Managing Director and Founder of HOME by MerseySTRIDE.

Bob Towers & Cathy Carthy Celebrating with MerseySTRIDE on winning Project of the Year

HOME by MerseySTRIDE are based on Great Homer Street (on the site of Great Homer St Market). They transformed the old, derelict KwikSave, into a great looking, professional, furniture retail store and workshop.

ADDRESS:
HOME by MerseySTRIDE,
114 Great Homer St,
Liverpool,
L5 3LQ
WEB: www.placecalledhome.org.uk

FURTHER INFO, QUOTES & PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE FROM:
Paul Brown, Founder and Managing Director
TEL: 07905-925949 EMAIL: paul.merseystride@gmail.com

Jon Metcalfe, Founder and employee of Liverpool Housing Trust
TEL: 07880-954640 EMAIL: JMetcalfe@lht.co.uk

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The House of St Barnabas

The House of St Barnabas [UK registered charity: 207242] has been assisting those affected by homelessness since 1846, and helping them to bring about a positive change in their lives. Since 2006, the House has been operating an Employment Training & Life Skills Centre focussed chiefly upon residents of Westminster (although we take referrals from other boroughs). The House’s aim is to assist low-support needs individuals away from a cyclical reliance upon homelessness services; we aspire to break the cycle of sporadic employment and homelessness through the delivery of our Employment Training & Life Skills Programme.

We recruit approximately 25 suitable individuals from partner homelessness organisations onto our three-month programme, which runs on average three times per year. We provide participants with a weekly timetable of compulsory classroom-based hospitality workshops and accredited training courses; personal development coaching to fine tune the personal and professional attributes required to secure and maintain successful employment; a rota of supported work experience placements within our onsite members’ club, Quintessentially Soho at The House of St Barnabas (this system is supported by a programme of ‘buddy training’ for our full-time staff team, in order to create an inclusive environment of training and development); CV writing, interview training and IT support, plus an extra-curricular schedule of social activities and therapies focused upon well-being. We work with a range of Employer Partners from across a variety of industries to deliver certain workshops and negotiate a series of unsupported work experience placements for our graduates.

The programmes we run last for 12 weeks. Of the initially recruited 25 people, approximately 15-17 individuals will complete the Programme and graduate. At the moment we run three such programmes per annum, but our plans are to increase this to six per annum, aiming to help 150 participants per year away from homelessness towards a more stable, happy, and economically independent life. It currently costs the Government approximately £26,000 per year to support a homeless person who could be working (source: BITC, 2009). If we are successful in supporting 45 people into employment and away from government support through three Employment Training and Life Skills programmes, then the cost-saving to society will be £1,170,000.

Pertinent to today’s economic and political climate The House of St Barnabas is working to become a sustainable enterprise by utilising our business contacts and business acumen as much as possible. We feel we are making excellent use of donations and volunteering hours alike to maintain the work of our charity. Spark’s support for The House of St Barnabas benefits a forward-thinking organisation that aims to practice what it preaches, in terms of converting motivation and skills into training and lasting employment opportunities.

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The Salvation Army Employment Plus – PAT-Testing

The Salvation Army is a Christian church and one of the most recognizable charities in the world; it was originally founded in 1865 in the United Kingdom by William and Catherine Booth to tackle the widespread social deprivation of the time, and now operates in 124 different countries. The Salvation Army tackles homelessness, addiction and various other social issues, whilst also being one of the organisations that provides the largest amount of aid relief worldwide.

Employment Plus UK, based in London, is one of its many specialist departments, and looks to tackle the serious and growing challenge of unemployment and homelessness in Great Britain. In 2008 Employment Plus UK won a share of the ‘Spark Challenge’. The Salvation Army has used the Spark prize, matched with money from its own funds, to establish a commercial PAT testing social enterprise business to train people who have experienced homelessness and to give them key skills to return to the work place, all while running a sustainable, professional and competitively priced business. PAT testing can form a key part of health and safety provision to ensure electronic appliances are safe, and tests are always performed by a qualified assessor. Our clients include the National Union of Students (NUS), Morley College, William Booth College, Thames Reach, the Salvation Army Housing Association and Chaucer Homecare Ltd.

Before the creation of Employment Plus PAT-Testing, The Salvation Army already offered services to clients that addressed psycho-social and basic skills issues, but it can now enhance their employability with the practical learning and application of these skills within a PAT testing business. Since 2008, Employment Plus PAT-Testing has trained 55 people, ahead of its original target. Alongside this it has also managed to create five Future Job Fund (FJF) positions. The Employment Plus UK PAT-Testing training scheme is accredited by the National Association of Professional Inspectors and Testers (NAPIT), one of the leading names in the electrical safety service business, and Employment Plus UK hopes to train a further 17 people by the end of the fiscal year.

For more information, please see www.salvationarmy.org.uk/pat-testing or call Nihal Perera, our Commercial Manager, on 0800 652 4276.

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Lydia’s House: The Theatre Royal Story

Lydia’s House have partnered up with the Theatre Royal in Newcastle Upon Tyne. The Theatre is undergoing a five million pound refurbishment programme and will be closed from March ’11 for three months.

Lydia’s House have been allocated the job of reupholstering the seven hundred and fifty theatre seats which are being sold to the public to help to raise further funds for the theatre’s refit. Lydia’s House offers a bespoke service in the interior design industry and specialises in design consultation including re-upholstery and furniture restoration with high end quirk and style. The Art Deco seats will be auctioned off over a two day event in March with a professional auction house selling on behalf of the theatre. Some of the seats have added value due to their actor, ownership status, which have now been kindly donated back to the theatre for auction.

The Theatre Royal is in its own right a charity and recognises the value of Lydia’s House in its Social vision in working with vulnerable women in the workshops in training and employment opportunities. But the job was secured on the grounds of LH style and quality. The showroom is situated in the centre of Newcastle very near to the theatre with the finished product from the workshops on display in their attractive windows, catching the eye of the Theatre Royals’ Development Manager Richard Burg-Rust.

The ‘up-cycled’ sample seats in a variety of finishes from leopard skin velvet through to silver ethylene, trimmed in claret with the Art Deco cast iron ends sprayed in chrome/ silver effect and the red velvet seat with a signature logo embroidered in gold will be fitted into the foyer of the Theatre Royal for the general public to be inspired to purchase, recycle and personalise from Friday 11th Feb ’11.

This exciting venture will be accompanied by a Theatre Royal PR campaign including regional BBC film footage and a bog attributed to Lydia’s House on their website. Not forgetting to mention the business generated for Lydia’s House’ workshops and a very generous donation of seats from the Theatre Royal.

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Community Insight wins research contract with Places for People

Community Insight, one of the winners of the 2010 Spark Challenge, has been commissioned by award winning property management and development company Places for People to carry out a customer satisfaction survey in six of its neighbourhoods in England. The contract follows hot on the heels of Community Insight’s success in winning investment through Spark and will allow the social enterprise to build on its experience of delivering research and training services across the country.

The satisfaction survey of people living in mixed tenure neighbourhoods across the North of England, in London and in Milton Keynes, will involve Places for People customers being trained in community research skills and supported to conduct door to door interviews in their own neighbourhoods. As well as providing Places for People with vital information on customer perceptions of the services they receive, their homes and neighbourhoods, the Community Insight service will introduce trainees to a new subject and help them gain employment and relevant voluntary experience.

Community Insight has previously been commissioned to conduct satisfaction surveys for housing management companies Innisfree, ECHG and PCHA. The information collected by the survey will be analysed to provide usable management information for Places for People’s Neighbourhoods and Regeneration team.

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The Heritage Kitchen Garden
Aspire @ Burford Garden Centre

In partnership with The Burford Garden Company, over the last 18 months Aspire has developed a 7 acre site where they grow, manage and cultivate a wide variety of home-grown fresh fruit, vegetables and flowers of all kinds. Carefully tended and lovingly raised, the produce will be making its way onto the plates of many local customers and into the vases of many Oxfordshire homes in the next 12 months.

Burford Garden Company has agreed to purchase the wholesale crops. Having already made a positive start this year with Tulips and a variety of salad and bean crops, Aspire are gearing up for a busy and plentiful 2011. With a fantastic array of delicious and unusual vegetables and beautiful flowers already having been sold into the food hall and florists at Burford Garden Company for customers to purchase. Aspire also sells their produce to the café restaurant in the garden centre, giving the customers a chance to sample the produce for themselves.

Aspire the social enterprise joined forces with Burford Garden Company the retailer, a business model with a twist but one which is certainly exciting and involving the locals and the general public. Through this project, Aspire are providing opportunities for service users to be creative and practical besides providing a place to educate and achieve. This in turn is leading to a sense of reward and ownership for service users over looking after their own plot of land.

Aspire works hard to ensure its service users have the best chance to move on into independent living and off of benefits by providing a variety of training and education services. All service users are offered the opportunity to attend Ruskin College to gain numeracy and literacy qualifications and Aspire have even supported and financed three individuals to gain driving licenses, raising their chances of improved employment opportunities. Aspire also hold a weekly two hour job search session that is carried out in partnership with Oxfordshire Adult Learning Centre and provide ongoing support to employees and employers after moving on from Aspire.

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