Social Firms UK

Travel Matters Enterprises combines a not-for-profit social enterprise and fully bonded travel agency business with a training centre for people recovering from mental health issues. We have just introduced a new way of showing travel customers the impact their business can have on the community in the form of a regular quarterly report. In just a few days we have received an outstanding response to this, which is why we want to share it with other members of Social Firms UK.

Based in Redhill, Surrey our client base is both national and international. We offer anything from domestic flights and train tickets to global travel, package holidays, cruises and any other necessary arrangements, such as visas, taxi transfers or car hire. Any profits made on the travel business go back into our IT training and work experience programmes. Read More>>

At the end of January I went to Glasgow to meet with Pauline Graham of Social Firms Scotland, and to visit Haven Products, an award-winning Glasgow based Social Firm, with a branch in Inverness. Like many of our members, Haven is a busy and thriving business, with a mixture of long-term and newer contracts.The day David Whyte and Ewan Fisher showed me round, part of the workforce was engaged in making and palleting boxes for The Edrington Group. A newer, but established service, is dealing with WEEE (waste electronic and electrical equipment, mostly computers). Read more...

 My first blog as the new CEO of Social Firms UK is about just that – being a new CEO. For many, the experience of the first few weeks in a new job is a similar one – getting to know the staff team, finding out where everything is, getting up to speed with existing projects, and most of all, the frustration of everything taking much longer than normal, as every small task involves finding information that in a previous job, was at your fingertips. And it is important to get the right balance between review, assimilation, reflection, action, as well as just keeping on top of the small and large daily decisions. Read more...

uSWAP is an online platform for swapping services and swapping items online. 

uSWAP is offering members of Social Firms UK a 30% discount to advertise their business on their website for 2010 off the usual price of £200 pa.

uSWAP are also looking for beta users to test the website.

For more information get in touch with founder Emma Dawson: admin@uswap.co.uk; +44 07984840376

  NOMS announced on Social Enteprise Day its intention to launch a major procurement opportunity, funded through ESF technical assistance and designed to support and facilitate the development of social enterprise consortia.

This will be an extended process that hopes to help, especially, small and medium sized social enterprises to be in a better position to participate in delivering services. The full launch will follow shortly and will include a range of regional events, networking events and workshops.

Dates for these initial events are currently being planned and will be published in early December. Please register your interest by emailing julie.taylor@noms.gsi.gov.uk and we will let you know when the dates/venue details are available.

 The Home Office support and modernisation fund has now gone live, details are available from the Home Office website and www.fundingcentral.org.uk.

The purpose of the fund is to provide practical support and advice to frontline voluntary, community, and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations that support Home Office objectives in preparation for the arrival of Police and Crime Commissioners in May 2012. This is not a fund for the provision of general supprt to the VCSE sector.

The social business and enterprise arena is often described as the fastest growing sector of the economy. It’s a nice thought if true, but just how big is it? According to government figures there are around 62,000 companies which could be described as social businesses or social enterprises in the UK. This is the figure that’s been routinely quoted for around two years. It is an impressive enough figure in itself, but the real number could be far higher.

Coming up on 11th of October, the ClearlySo Social Business Conference will attempt to illustrate just how high. Under the theme ‘all shapes and sizes’ it aims to provide a vivid illustration of the sheer diversity of activity taking place in this arena.