Lots to catch up on or bring to people’s attention, after time away:

– the Enterprising Solutions awards were launched….and it’s last call for the Edge awards as well

– BIG Invest WLTM social enterprises seeking investment between £50,000 and £500,000

– the Office of the Third Sector are really kicking into gear on their various action plans: two more tenders announced recently; one for an innovation exchange and one to run the social enterprise ambassadors programme which was a feature of the Scaling New Heights action plan. SSE attended a seminar on the subject the other week…..

– Meanwhile, in Scotland, the executive published its equivalent to the action plan….called Better Business; the ever-reliable SENScot summarise it here

– Several SSE Fellows are running events or featuring in the media: see SoundDelivery, OnRoadMedia (workshops), Grandparents Plus (Radio 4 appeal), Faith Action (launch, featuring Campbell Robb, DG of the OTS) and Ann Cotton of CAMFED fame (Guardian); also, a mention for Ray Brown at Redesign Youth who has got a first big piece of work with a youth centre in Lewisham

– Having seen Muhammad Yunus (rightly) feted at Skoll, and much talk about the need to scale up, it was interesting to read an article about the problems it can bring, even for the best of us….see Bangladeshi phone row

– There’s an interesting article by Barbara Phillips in Social Enterprise Magazine this month (not online that I can see), using SSE Fellows as a means of demonstrating the diversity that naturally occurs through appropriate support and engagement

– Also, check out Third Sector’s new website which is a VAST improvement: wonderful. Already signed up to the relevant RSS feeds + watching the spangly new social enterprise section

– …which includes mention of the brand new Social Innovation Exchange website, with which SSE is proud to be involved from its inception; already, some of the international linkages and learning has been really valuable….