For reasons that are beyond me, this week’s news is themed around children’s nursery rhymes. It just sort of started with the HCT bus news and grew from there into some sort of unstoppable force. By the way, once you begin digging into the world of nursery rhymes, wow, does it get controversial. Plague, Viking attacks on London, regicide – it’s like a vision of the SSE Christmas party next week.
Have a good weekend and enjoy the news…
“The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. The wheels on the bus go round and round, all day long.”
Particularly true at social enterprise bus company HCT Group, which this week raised a massive £10 million in growth capital from social impact and mainstream investors. Should keep the wheels going round for at least a while longer.
“Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. And on that farm he had a goat, E-I-E-I-O.”
Vowel loving Farmer MacDonald should definitely look for collaboration opportunities with SSE Fellow Lynne Davis. Lynne is crowdfunding for ‘Street Goat’, an innovative urban farming project in which communities collectively keep dairy goats on marginal land in Bristol, sharing the costs, the responsibilities and the milk.
“Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief”.
All welcome to attend the taster sessions for next year’s Lloyds Bank Social Entrepreneurs Programme. Book your spot now, we’re looking for social entrepreneurs at start-up and scale-up stage.
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a big fall. All the King’s horses and all the King’s men couldn’t put Humpty together again.”
Poor Humpty. Perhaps he could patch himself together on a natural skincare workshop from Wild Goose, which was set up by SSE student Hayley Gillard. Hayley is offering readers of Have I Got Social Enterprise News For You 50% off their Natural Skincare classes in Yorkshire between now and Christmas. Use discount code SSE at the checkout.
“One two, buckle my shoe; three four, open the door”.
Where is this person going? Sounds like they’re putting their posh shoes on, so could it perhaps be a job interview? Could they be heading to meet with Hubbub, who are currently looking for an ‘Innovative Social Entrepreneur‘? It’s a cool sounding job, for a cool organisation – they came up with this ingenious litter preventing idea earlier in the year.
“Old King Cole was a merry old soul, And a merry old soul was he; He called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl, And he called for his fiddlers three.”
Cheerful music lover King Cole may wish to attend New Note Orchestra’s Christmas Concert on December 15th in Brighton. New Note encourages people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction to play and compose music, and was founded by SSE Fellow Molly Mathieson. The concert features acclaimed pianist Helen Burford.
“Ding, dong, bell, Pussy’s in the well. Who put her in? Little Johnny Flynn. Who pulled her out? Little Tommy Stout.”
That Johnny Flynn sounds like trouble. Tommy Stout, on the other hand, sounds like a much more charitable guy. I’m going to suggest that he gets in touch with Betknowmore UK, who are currently looking for trustees. Launched in 2014 by SSE Fellow Frankie Graham, they provides support and education services to address problematic issues caused by gambling.
New Board members will help support exciting, new business developments planned for 2016. For more details, please contact Frankie at [email protected].
(Also relevant is ‘how to engage and retain volunteers in your charity work‘).
“Who killed Cock Robin? ‘I’, said the Sparrow, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin”.
Hang on a minute. How does a sparrow shoot a bow and arrow? Surely it lacks the carpometacarpal dexterity to do so? I not sure whether this rhyme is based on a true story. Anyway, I just hope that ‘Cock Robin’ (if that’s even his real name) had the opportunity to head to one of the Before I Die Network’s socials before he was assassinated by the avian archer. The next one is on Wednesday 16th December at Impact Hub Brixton – head down if you want to figure out how to plan your steps towards those ambitions of yours, or if you need a hand (or just a kick up the backside) to get the ball rolling.
“As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, each wife had seven sacks,
each sack had seven cats, each cat had seven kits: Kits, cats, sacks, and wives, how many were there going to St. Ives?”
An intriguing question. But not as intriguing as the questions that I have posed in our 2015 Training Survey. If you haven’t done so already, why not spend 10 minutes filling it in today? You may even win a prize. And it means that I can stop banging on about it as well.
“Here we go round the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush.
Here we go round the mulberry bush, so early in the morning.”
I could not tell you what a mulberry bush looks like. But Tesco are providing funding to improve green spaces in communities across England, Wales and Scotland so maybe someone can plant one and let me know.
Coming up at SSE
- Kickstart Your Social Media Strategy, SSE London, 21st January
- Crowdfunding for Social Enterprises, SSE London, 27th January
- An Introduction to Legal Structures, SSE London, 28th January
- Leadership Development, SSE London, starts 17th February
- Replication and Social Franchising, SSE London, starts 25th January
