As we pore over the various action plans and reviews (third sector pre-budget, social enterprise, public service delivery), we prepare for our Fellowship event tomorrow, in which a further 20 will be welcomed to the growing network who’ve completed SSE programmes. The event will be at Rich Mix all day tomorrow, featuring writer and broadcaster Simon Fanshawe and Minister for the Cabinet Office and Social Exclusion Hilary Armstrong, and some amazing and inspirational people (the real stars) driving tangible change in their communities.

As a trailer for the celebration event, there is a long article about SSE in the Education Guardian today, entitled ‘Passion in action‘. Aside from getting the day wrong (they graduate tomorrow, not last week), the article is just about spot on, and really captures what we’re all about: pretty rare and welcome for a newspaper piece….plus its important that we’re recognised for the learning/educational/people development side of what we do, not just the social impact/societal change part. The two go together, and this article communicates that well.

And we’re not the only ones in the media: another SSE Fellow, Simon Fenton-Jones, featured on the Politics Show on BBC 1 on Sunday (so I’m told; I confess to missing it), as chief exec of StreetShine. This was in connection with Iain Duncan Smith’s Centre for Social Justice report….which you can read much more about (and comment on) here.

Last but by no means least, news from another Fellow, Paul Hodgkin, whose Patient Opinion site has started a new feature. Paul writes: "the Patient Opinion blog has just started a new Stories from the Cutting
Edge service where we post up the day’s
(or perhaps the week’s if we’re busy!) most interesting opinion from the front
line of the NHS. Plus whatever comment and erudition we can muster."

Great stuff….