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Dear friends
It's me again and welcome to our second newsletter. Happy belated Easter to all and I hope the clocks going forward hasn't messed with your internal clocks as it has with mine! As ever it's been non stop, but being busy is a good thing. This month we have some fantastic news including:
Trustee board strengthened
We are very pleased and honoured to announce a new member of our Trustee Board. Nigel Kershaw - Nigel is currently Chief Executive of Big Issue Invest and Chairman of The Big Issue, is a leading practitioner and advocate of social enterprises which offer business solutions to social problems. Big Issue Invest, founded by The Big Issue, is a specialist provider of finance to social enterprises. In July 2007 he was nominated as Director of the Month by the Institute of Directors. Nigel is also a Cabinet Office Social Enterprise Ambassador.
We look forward working with Nigel and learning from his expertise within the social enterprise sector.
Operational support from Business Link London
After speaking at a Business Link team day about the ambitions of the Bright Ideas Trust we have agreed a partnership with Business Link London. Bright ideas Trust will be recommended as a third party solution to start up companies which match our charitable objectives. We look forward to developing a longstanding relationship and would like to thank Patrick Elliot and his teams for all their support and assistance to date. Although we have received a good number of applications from the partnership we are still awaiting our first supported business. We're getting closer and will keep you updated with our efforts.
If you or any of your contacts may be able to help with our ambitions to empower young people who need it most, then please email us at enquiries@brightideastrust.com.
Partnership with Accenture
We are proud to announce another key partner along our journey. Accenture, the global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, are supporting us with our endeavours to support tomorrow entrepreneurs. We will have more details of how our relationship will pan out over the next few months but we are looking forward to working with Accenture to strengthen our internal processes and as a result our offer to young people.
Spreading the word
Since the last newsletter I have been at several events and at Kelmscott school in East London taking the vision of the Trust with me. The Social Enterprise Coalition Voice '08 Conference in Liverpool was fantastic and with hundreds of social entrepreneurs in the same place was a brilliant experience personally. I had the pleasure of speaking at the Young Voices day and was inspired by the number of young people not only interested in business but also helping their communities. The Emerging Talent Conference in Scotland was as inspiring where young people were given the opportunity to get into the hospitality industry with bursary support. I also attended the launch of BET and challenged the owners about their responsibility to young people. Glen Yearwood from the Glen Yearwood Group and the senior representatives from BET assured the audience that they wished to be good corporate citizens. With Glen at the helm they will be.
Finally we worked with Make your Mark with the Mall where a number of entrepreneurs were given the opportunity to take their business into Malls around the UK. The competition asked young people to put their ideas for a retail opportunity forward with an emphasis on the impact that their business will have on the community around them. The Mall then gave 23 of these young people 2 weeks free trading in one of their 23 Malls around the country. We have just finished judging which one of these traders has done the best and the winner will receive more trading space, business advice from the Royal Bank of Scotland and a place on the respected Oxford University Summer School. All other participants will receive support in the way of business advice and networking opportunities. So that's all for this edition of BIT news. I'm incredibly lucky to be involved in the work I do and to see the power of business to change people's lives. Long may it continue! Thanks for reading and let's keep doing all we can to empower tomorrow's entrepreneurs. Best wishes,  Founder
The Bright Ideas Trust
Empowering Tomorrow's Entrepreneurs Cabinet Office Social Enterprise Ambassador |
The Bright Ideas Trust has joined forces with Virgin Media to run a nationwide competition to find a budding entrepreneur who wants to set up an online business with the most innovative business idea.