Volunteer at SHINE and enjoy the rest of the unconference for free!

SHINE needs you! Volunteer at the unconference during 13^th-15^th May.

SHINE is a big event with absolutely loads going on and it takes a lot of people to keep things running smoothly. We think there’s no-one better to help us do that than volunteers who’d love to come to the event. If you’d like to become a SHINE volunteer, help out for a day and then enjoy the rest of the unconference at your leisure, take a look at the kinds of things we’ll need your help with, and get in touch with us at http://bit.ly/cehN83

Volunteer roles

Registration & welcome

You’ll be greeting people as they arrive at SHINE, helping direct them to the desk to hand in their ticket and pick up an attendee pack, to buy a ticket if they need one, or to connect with the organisers if they’re a contributor or speaker. We also need volunteers to man the desks to take tickets or help people purchase tickets. This is a role for those who are great with people, friendly and welcoming and who can think on their feet.

Directions

You’ll be ushering people in the right direction when they arrive, or letting people know where sessions and being run and which room is which. We’ll have volunteers dotted around the entire event, to help attendees get where they need to go. Do you have a good sense of space and love to help people? We need you!

General

This is for people who are happy to generally muck in! On event days there’s so many things going on and all sort of last-minute things to sort out – sticking up amended programmes, keeping the event space clear of cups, rubbish and bits of paper, finding people who aren’t where they need to be, moving a few chairs around, popping out to get more blue-tak…you get the idea! If you’re fleet of foot and thrive on variety, this is the role for you.

Participant liaison

Help us keep things running smoothly by greeting speakers and facilitators and making sure they get to where they need to be. You’ll also need to keep an eye on the time so you can marshal contributors ready for their sessions so we don’t run over time. We’ll also look to you to help with time-keeping to signal facilitators when it’s getting close to wrapping up time. This is for volunteers who are great at making people feel prepared and comfortable, and with excellent time awareness!

Advisors

Some people know just what they want to get out of SHINE and select sessions with laser-like precision. Others can need a bit of help working out what content is going to be best for them, and this is where advisors come in. We need experienced business and social enterprise folks who can offer a helping hand in navigating the programme. As well as experience, you’ll have a great memory to speed through the session information at a glance, and be a great communicator to effectively help people who need it.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Message from FutureGov Consultancy

The brilliant team at FutureGov consultancy NEED YOU to help them shape the agenda for the session they’re hosting at SHINE: The Government Listens Live. Here’s how you can get involved, via Lauren at FutureGov.

We’re really excited to be chairing a session which will continue from the Government is listening session, in which participants will have the opportunity to pitch questions to senior civil servants from Communities and Local Governments, the Office of the Third Sector and the London Borough of Camden.

We’ve set up a uservoice and would love to hear how the sessions agenda should be shaped so we can help social entrepreneurs receive better community support and explore ways of working effectively with those in the public sector. To explore other great sessions that will be run through the course of the event take a look at the event programme.

Filed under: Uncategorized , futuregov, government, uservoice

Session Just In: What can be done by next week if we put our minds into it?

An exercise in super-lean collaborative social innovation, that’s just gone into Saturday’s Programme.

We need nine self-selecting individuals who want to come together for an hour to achieve two of the following in response to the question ´what can be done by next week?:

1. think of something amazing of mutual interest just beyond realistic and into the realms of idealistic.

2. Commit to trying to achieve the ideal objective by the following week with contributions from everyone in their group.

3. Actually achieve the objective!

This action cycle is a simple mechanism to realise the social ideal through the power of distributed networks.

Come with a willingness to make something happen but also an openness to the unknown and the limitless power of collaboration and distributed networks.

The outcome is unknown because you will chose what objective to pursue. On a first-come, first-served basis so please contact Bonnie Wong at bonnie@compositionadvisory.com if you want to participate. Take a leap of faith!

The session will be hosted by David Pinto who has been a maths teacher for over 10 years, playing with conciousness and self-organising systems to achieve amazing results. He is currently translating what he´s learned into the adult world. His collaborations are centered in simplicity, high trust, experiential learning and achieving social ideas beyond the individual. Bonnie Wong is a freelance consultant advising organisations on strategy, action planning and finance raising. She is presently exploring projects relating to co-working and multi-modal space. She is interested in not only how property can be used as an enabler for social enterprise, but also how people interact within space. She is keen to develop processes like the action cycle and other forms of collaboration and social technology to help transform more ideas into realities.

Check out http://www.compositionadvisory.com to find out more

Filed under: Uncategorized , collaboration, network, project

Session Just In: take a trip to the people’s supermarket

The People’s Supermarket: a social enterprise offering a completely new way of shopping, and the subject of a forthcoming Channel 4 series.
As part of SHINE unconference, you’re invited to a visit to the site of the first People’s Supermarket in the UK, which will be based just around the corner from the SHINE venue in Holborn. Take your guided tour with Arthur Potts-Watson, founder of The People’s Supermarket and owner of Acorn House, and hear how its membership model will enable a supermarket that is run by the people for the people, selling the best food at the lowest possible prices.

A great chance to get inspiration from an exciting new social enterprise. Don’t miss out: SHINE, Friday 14th at 4.30pm. Find out more on The People’s Supermarket at http://www.thepeoplessupermarket.org

Filed under: Uncategorized , Acorn House, food, people's supermarket, tour

How to make your own videos for web: top tips for social entrepreneurs

A guest blog today from Be Inspired Films, who created our brilliant SHINE documentary last year.

The Team at Be Inspired Films help social enterprises tighten and translate their messages into compelling film content – rather than just make films themselves, they teach you the skills to do it, so you’ve got it in your back pocket.

Very generously, they’re offering up their top tips on how to approach creating a video for the web. Let’s go:

• Begin with the end in mind. Make sure you know why you’re making the video, what outcomes you want to get from it, and who you’re targeting.

• Make me a cake. Now you know what you want to achieve, you should start to think about the ingredients in advance – the core elements of the story.

• The iceberg effect. Don’t underestimate how much is involved in making even a short video. As a rough guideline, you’ll spend three times as much time editing as shooting. Investing in planning will reap huge rewards.

• The camera’s not a hoover. It’s a gun. Be targeted about what you’re shooting. It’s about precision, not spray and pray. This will save you a huge amount of time in the editing process.

• Once step forward, two steps back. Make sure you do yourself justice. Creating video is easy, and you don’t have to create something really flash, but spend time developing your skills. It’s worth it.

• Don’t bore people! At home it’s called sit-back TV. On the internet, it’s sit-forward TV. Keep it short, engaging and to the point, or they’ll be off your site.

• Money isn’t everything. Equipment is cheaper and distribution is free. It’s a level playing field now.

• Play to your strengths. There’s so much noise on the internet, don’t try to be something you’re not. Be authentic and you’ll be interesting. When you’re a small organisation, it’s better than a gimmick.

• Dedication’s what you need. Costs are lower but you’ve got to put in the effort.

• End with the beginning in mind. Think back to your objectives. Have you made the film you set out to, or have you got distracted along the way?

If you’d like more where this came from, Be Inspired Films are hosting seven  daylong workshops in May for social entrepreneurs which will give you the skills and confidence to effectively create compelling web video content.

The usual price is £699 per organisation, but as part of the SHINE network, you can go for £249 per person. Participate in the training, and you’ll be ahead of the pack.

Book in your place here. Go go go!

Plus, you’ll be able to meet Be Inspired Films at SHINE 2010 – the super team will be running dropin 1-to-1 sessions and a storyboarding workshop.

Check them out at www.beinspiredfilms.co.uk

Filed under: Uncategorized

Session Just In: Fink Club

It’s the big social entrepreneurs battle, and it’s coming to SHINE. Fink club is like Fight Club, but where punches are replaced by a high-energy contest of ideas.

Time to Enter the Ring, Ladies and Gentlemen

Four opinionated individuals will kick-off a ringside debate on the big question of SHINE 2010 – what’s the biggest contribution we as social entrepreneurs can make to the world?

A boxing ring, a referee and you. Prepare to pick a side and back your champion at this very unconventional, end-of-day session. No social entrepreneurs will be hurt in the making of Fink Club.

Friday at SHINE, 5.40pm

Filed under: Uncategorized , debate, fink club, social entrepreneur

Session Just In: how to make crowd-sourcing work with SellAVenture

A heads up on a new session in the programme.  It’s all very well saying you can crowd-source money for your social venture, but how do you reach people, and more importantly how do you get enough people to say yes to make it worth your while?

Here comes SellAVenture, a new online tool which is launching in May, to connect you to people who can fund you.  Expect tips on how to crowd-fund, and get support and awareness through the crowd, the low down on what SellAVenture will offer and stories directly from other social entrepreneurs on how they did it.

We’re looking forward to this one – there’s a lot of hype about crowd-sourcing, so great to be looking at how people have actually done it.

This session kicks off at 4.30pm in Pod 3, on Friday 14th May.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Programme Live – now it’s over to you

Really excited to have put the first version of the programme live, which you can see here. Now we’re publishing and trailing sessions as they get booked in, you can expect the blog to carry the latest preview of new content. With less than 6 weeks to go, we’re full-steam ahead.

Our launch programme includes the following and more….

1. Thursday night launch party including debate on what the new government means for social entrepreneurs. Well we don’t know that yet, but we will, and you’ll have the inside track at SHINE.

2. The wonderful Doug Richard, founder of School for Startups, who is going to be challenging you to JUST DO IT and seize the current opportunities.

3. Learn how to be a Leader, with the prestigious Clore Social Leadership programme

4. Get to grips with understanding and showing the impact that you make through your venture, with School for Social Entrepreneurs

5. Dedicated sessions to bring together those of you working in specific sectors: education / health / international development / environment and sustainability. Time to connect and work out how you can partner up!

6. A fantastic practical workshop from Limina, The Hub and CLEAR Village Lab, on developing social enterprise networks and spaces, together. Including how we can hook-in rural social enterprises.

7. Oh and another party on Friday night where you can network and drink the night away!

But wait! Now it’s your turn.

The whole point of SHINE, and the reason we do it, is to give social entrepreneurs the space to talk about the things that matter to you. If you’ve always wanted to get advice how to recruit your first employee. If you’re planning a project abroad and want to test your idea first. If you want to discuss tips on where to go for finance…. if if if….. then we would love for you to let us know. If you want to host a session, providing it fits with the ethos of SHINE (practical rather than theoretical, useful for social entrepreneurs, then we would love to hear from you!

Maybe hosting a discussion sounds a bit scary, in which case there are lots of other easy ways to get more from SHINE – which include pitching at the event or passing on a business mistake you made, which might be useful for other entrepreneurs. Go here to get involved.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Alvin Hall on Social Enterprise

He’s known for his quirky bow-tie and incredibly sweet manner when savagely cutting down people who have issues managing their money (it’s ok, he also transforms their lives for good).

Yep, Alvin Hall, one of our most loved TV business personalities is back, and this time, he’s presenting a series on Social Enterprise, Alvin’s Guide to Good Business, currently being aired on the BBC World Service.

The premise is this: Alvin travels the world meeting eight inspiring social enterprises, and helps them with their businesses. He’ll return 6 months later to see how they get on…. Hopefully with fewer tears than the likes of Hell’s Kitchen. Here’s the trailer:

In promoting his show, there are a couple of things Alvin has said that really chime with us. First on fundraising:

“The recent worldwide economic downturn has made fundraising a challenge for most social enterprises, especially those with less data showing the effectiveness of their enterprise. Funders are undoubtedly moved by the emotions underlying the organisation, but they also want proof (or close to it) of its effectiveness.”

Though it’s not the most immediately enjoyable topic, every year people ask for more and more content on evaluation and impact measurement from SHINE. Nick Temple, who runs 1-to-1 consultancies one this topic, gets inundated! We all know that in order to raise money you need to make the case for what you’re achieving.

But the problem when starting up is this: how to even know which kind of impact you should be aiming for. Or what ‘impact’ means in the first place. It’s the fundamental questions that need to be answered before diving in to statistics, so we’ll be making sure all these questions are answered for you this year.

What we’ll also explore is how good evaluation can bring benefits to all aspects of your social enterprise, from business planning through to your marketing, and even recruiting the team.

Another interesting point made by Alvin:

“Often, the enterprise is heavily associated with its founder, who is also the primary fundraiser. Finding or designating the person who can continue the organisation’s work and raise the needed funding is an issue that is often sidestepped – especially if the person has a forceful personality and is doing a remarkable job.”

This comes back to the crux of SHINE, an event and movement to support social entrepreneurs. So many people are starting their businesses on their own, and it’s largely your personalities, drive and persistence that take you through to success. But starting-up when initially one person is tough. It’s tiring, hard-work, and lonely. Sometimes you’re not sure if your judgement is right and whether you’re making sound decisions.

This is where SHINE comes in. By bringing social entrepreneurs together with eachother, we aim to create a supportive environment where you can get practical help, and also feel a part of something bigger, even if day-to-day you’re working on your own. And even more than this, the event helps you work out where you should be focusing your energies, and where you could hand-over to someone else, even when so much hinges on you.

Filed under: Uncategorized , evaluation, funding, impact, media

The Social Investment Business return to SHINE

An update from us to announce that The Social Investment Business (formerly known as Futurebuilders) are joining SHINE 2010 as a sponsor. Their sessions were incredibly popular at SHINE 09 and many of you took advantage of 1-to-1 consultancies to discuss your social enterprise and funding opportunities. In fact, here’s a photo of one of them in action:

The Social Investment Business is the fastest growing social investor in the UK. Their mission is to help the third sector prosper through better access to finance, business support and long-term strategic thinking. We know they’re looking forward having a chat with you at SHINE about funding that may be available – more from us soon on their content and how you can come meet them.

Filed under: Uncategorized , funding, investment, sponsor