Colin Crooks

Or have you started to plan your business and want to know what the next steps are?

Tree Shepherd, Spires and Lambeth Council have teamed up to offer a free ‘Start Your Own Business’ course starting in Streatham on 1st July which aims to help you with your business or business idea. The course will be run by Colin Crooks, Lambeth’s leading social entrepreneur and author of the book ‘How to Make a Million Jobs’.

Location:
Spires, 8 Tooting Bec Gardens, Streatham, London SW16 1RB

Dates & times:
10am to 4pm
1st July, 8th July, 15th July, 22nd July and 29th July

For more information or to sign up for the course email admin@spires.org.uk or call 0208 696 0943.

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This is an open event, free to all. Refreshments will be provided.

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Are you thinking of setting up a social enterprise?

If so, join us on our FREE two-hour interactive workshop! This will suit individuals considering starting a social enterprise and established social enterprises, and the workshop is designed to inspire and help you start up or improve your current business model. You will learn the basics of legal frameworks of social enterprise and tips on building a successful and sustainable business venture.

This workshop will be held by Tree Shepherd’s Colin Crooks and will take place:

On Thursday 6th June between 5pm and 7pm
At Phoenix House, 10 Wandsworth Road, Vauxhall SW8 2LL

Sign up for the workshop here!

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“Many thanks for speaking at our session last week. We all thought it was great. Everyone thoroughly appreciated you giving them expert feedback on their pitches, your talk on the key elements of successful enterprise was littered with interesting examples, and the drawing exercise was fun and informative – there was certainly copious note-taking throughout. When we run the course again, we would certainly be really pleased if you would agree to do all of it again!”

At Tree Shepherd, we are always happy to connect with new individuals and organisations, and if you are interested in having Colin as a speaker or trainer, don’t hesitate to drop us a line at colin@treeshepherd.org.uk.

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For more information, please email colin@treeshepherd.org.

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Day 1 (Fri 3rd May): Knock to Bundoran – approx 60 miles
Day 2 (Sat 4th May) Bundoran to London/Derry – approx 85 miles (with quite a few hills)
Day 3 (Sun 5th May) London/Derry to Portstewart – approx 50 miles
Day 4 (Bank Holiday Mon 6th May) Portstewart to Ballycastle – approx 32 miles
Day 5 (Tues 7th May) Ballycastle to Belfast – approx 70 miles

If you would like to sponsor Colin or find out more about Save The Children’s work in Syria, click here to get to Colin’s Just Giving page.

Many thanks!

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So said one student after the first day of Lambeth’s brand new “Start your own business” course. The course is being delivered by Colin Crooks of Tree Shepherd, a passionate and experienced social entrepreneur. Colin firmly believes that great business ideas can be found everywhere and that people from across the community have the potential to be entrepreneurial and do something that will benefit both them and their community.

The course is funded by Lambeth Adult Education Services and people from across the borough and from all walks of life came through the doors of High Trees Community Centre in Tulse Hill. Many are currently unemployed, more than half had not run a business before, and the age range spanned the generations.

Colin was delighted with the attendance. He said “I’m really pleased that so many people have come today and I’m especially pleased that the course has appealed to people from such varied backgrounds. I believe diversity, both of ideas and of experience, is the key to making a course like this successful. Without a high level of diversity it’s easy to make lazy assumptions about things like markets and motivation.”

And as people’s stories and ideas were revealed through the day the depth and breadth of the entrepreneurial spirit was startling – indeed one student, Rishin Paonaskar said “It was particularly uplifting to see people who initially seemed reserved and unsure of themselves open up and express some truly unique ideas by the end of the morning session.”

It’s early days yet but the down to earth teaching style seems to have struck a chord with the students – “It tells me how I need to focus” said one after the first day and another said “it provided the best way to start up and succeed.”

The Start up business course is now full but Colin is working on setting up new courses elsewhere in Lambeth – watch this space!

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Do you think you have what it takes to become a social entrepreneur?

Do you want to gain new skills while improving your community?

We are looking for creative individuals, groups and organisations to take part in an exciting new training programme focused on the recovery, reuse and sale of ‘waste’ materials with the aim of helping your community develop new skills, generate income and employment opportunity.

Through a series of specially designed training sessions participants will explore and develop social enterprises around either high value metals or textiles depending on your skills, preference and interest.

The training will help you to:

• Build and develop the skills, confidence and knowledge to set up, run and market your own community-based enterprise
• Target the recovery of ‘waste’ items effectively diverting them from landfill
• Generate income and employment opportunity in your local community

The three training sessions will be 9^th, 16^th and 30^th May 2013, location TBC.

For more information or to register interest please contact Ben Hudson at LSx by phone on 020 7234 9405 or by email at b.hudson@lsx.org.uk.

Places are limited so please get in touch as soon as possible if interested.

Please note this opportunity is available to Hounslow residents only.

This programme is being delivered by London Sustainability Exchange in partnership with London Community Resource Network and Tree Shepherd for the London Borough of Hounslow.

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Got an idea or something you love doing that you would like to develop?

Tree Shepherd has teamed up with High Trees Community Development Trust to offer a free course which will show you how.

You will work with experienced social entrepreneurs and learn about:

• business planning
• sales and marketing
• generating income
• finance
• people management
• networking
• protecting your business

The course will take place at:

St Martins Learning Centre, 220 Upper Tulse Hill, London SW2 2NS

We start on Wednesday 24th April and the course runs until Wednesday 26th June. There are no sessions on 8th May and 29th May.

Please note this opportunity is available to Lambeth residents only.

To find our more and to sign up, email admin@high-trees.org or call Alan on 020 8671 3132.

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Colin Crooks

On Wednesday 8th May, Colin Crooks will be joined by Nick Temple of Social Enterprise UK and others to lead a roundtable discussion on the issues and challenges of getting social enterprises into corporate supply chains. We will be looking at the impact of the Social Value Act and initiatives such as SEUK’s Buy Social campaign.

The general admission price is £10, which includes a glass of wine, but if you email melanie.yap@onpurpose.uk.com letting her know you heard about the event through Tree Shepherd, you will get a £5 discount code!

Once you have the discount code, sign up here:

Watch this space for more details….

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