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Introduction

Since 2005, Senscot has hosted 12 annual Social Enterprise Conferences. The event was originally conceived to support the work of the Local Social Enterprise Networks (SENS) – bringing the SENs and their members together- to share learning; establish wider connections; give a broader context to their work; as well as to celebrate their achievements. The programme for the two-day event included a series of learning sessions; trading events; case studies and the popular Dragons’ Den during the day – followed by a dinner dance in the evening.

Over the years, the event grew in popularity and emerged as one of the key events in Scotland’s SE calendar. Its main distinction amongst these was that it was and remains the only event that had as a primary focus the role and contribution made by grassroots social enterprises. Over 120 delegates regularly attend - with, on average, 70% being from frontline social enterprises.

Last year (2016), a slightly different approach was taken to reflect Senscot’s increasing collaboration with other national intermediary or support organisations who also work specifically with locally-based organisations. These included the Scottish Community Alliance, Social Firms Scotland and Community Enterprise. This ‘partnership approach’ is again being repeated in 2017.

Each year, the event has a main theme – in 2017, this is to be around ‘collaboration’. There are a number of reasons for this:

• the publication of the Scottish SE Strategy and supporting SE Action Plan; • the findings of the recent 2017 SE Census; • public sector contract opportunities; • the landscape at a local level with regard to the role of TSIs and the growing demand

for SENs in areas that want them.

In our view, the only way the social enterprise community can meet these challenges and to achieve the objectives identified in the Strategy is through increased and sustained collaboration.

The programme for event will include a series of topics and initiative that are all designed to help this process.

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Programme Outline

Thursday 7th December

10:00 Registration, tea, coffee

10:30am Welcome

10:40 – 11:45 The Social Enterprise Action Plan

Opportunities for front-line social enterprises

- Chair: Aidan Pia (Senscot)

- Panel: Julie Farr (Dundee SEN); Claire Pattullo (Edinburgh SE); Fiona Pearson (West Lothian SEN); Elizabeth McKenna (Glasgow SEN)

11:45 – 12:15pm SE Showcase

- Resonate Together – Angela Beardsley

- ROAR – Nicola Hansson

- Showcase the Street – Fergus Storrier

- Upward Mobility – Josh Barton

- The Tower Digital Arts Centre – Brian Keating

12:15 – 12:30pm Community Loan Fund Announcement

12:30 – 1.15pm Lunch

1:15 – 2:00pm Speed Networking or Discussion Forum

2:00 – 3:00pm Break-out Sessions

1. Branding and Marketing

2. Scotland’s Cultural Strategy

3. Joint Thematic SEN

4. U>P (Unlocking Potential)

5. Partnership for Procurement (P4P)

3:00 – 4:00pm Break-out Sessions – Repeated

4:00 – 4:15pm Coffee

4:15 – 5:30pm Dragons’ Den

5:30 – 7:00pm Free time

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7:00pm Drinks reception

7:30pm Dinner

9:00pm Open Mic Session

10:00pm Close

Friday 8th December

9:45 – 10:45am SE Interactive Session

- SEN Members showcasing dementia products

10:45 -11:00am Coffee

11:00 – 12:30pm Plenary Session - Spotlight on Failure – myths and reality of sustainability in

social enterprise - Chair: Douglas Westwater (Community Enterprise)

- Panel: Rick Rijsdijk (Social Value Lab); David Cook (Cook

Creative / West Ward Works); Tracy Murdoch (Kidzeco);

Linda Fay (Life-Pod)

12:30pm Lunch and Close

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The Social Enterprise Action Plan

The Social Enterprise Action Plan was published in April 2017 to cover a three year period up to March 2020. Within the Action Plan, there are over 90 ‘key actions’ that Scottish Govt is committed to try and support during the life of the Plan.

Whilst many of the ‘key actions’ will have particular relevance and interest to social enterprises involved in specific thematic and/or geographic areas, this session will seek to focus on the particular contribution that SENs and their members can make on some specific actions:

This session will focus on three topics of specific relevance to SEN members and frontline social enterprises across Scotland:

• Action1D.5: Supporting Early Stage Social Enterprises

This Action is committed to introducing additional, early stage capacity building support to develop collaboration and trading capacity among new, democratically-controlled social enterprises with a place-based focus. We want to consider issues around the content of this support; how it is delivered and by whom; and how it relates with other existing support and/or funding programmes

• Action 2C.1: Extending social enterprise networks

The Action Plan states that it will extend place-based Social Enterprise Networks (SENs) to every part of Scotland that wants one and to develop the potential of Thematic SENs. This session will look at the specific role of SENs – both locally and nationally – and how could or should local SENs and thematic SENs seek to interact with one another.

• Action 3B.5: Building the Social Enterprise Brand

The Action Plan talks about introducing the international Buy Social certification scheme to Scotland, ensuring appropriate adaptation and a locally responsive method on implementation. The session will at whether or not there is support for this sort of initiative; what would the criteria be? what is meant by ‘appropriate adaptation’? will it be free? who would administer such a scheme etc?

This session will be chaired by Aidan Pia (Senscot) who will give an overview of the issues, challenges and opportunities for SEN and SEN members around these actions. This will be followed by roundtable discussions led by a designated person at each table.

The session will culminate with a Q&A with a panel that will include Julie Farr (Dundee SEN); Claire Pattullo (Edinburgh SE); Fiona Pearson (West Lothian SEN); and Elizabeth McKenna (Glasgow SEN).

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SE Showcase

Resonate Together Borne out of a need by local people to make positive change for individuals and our wider community, to create opportunities and to increase choices for us all, Resonate was founded. Instead of the traditional ‘start-up’ strategy they decided to take a self-funded risk, giving them the chance to develop their basic natural shared instinct. They chose as core activity, a listening and sharing system, which has created a dynamic environment for people to connect with themselves and others.

Roar Roar: Connections For Life encourages self-management by reaching, understanding and supporting people to value wellbeing and social connections. They achieve this through offering a varied menu of social opportunities to laugh, learn and leave wanting more and a whole systems approach to busting the myth that falls are an inevitable part of aging. Roar provides preventative, health and wellbeing services for older people through the development of community opportunities that connect lives.

Showcase The Street Showcase the Street’s mission is to use the arts and sports to support areas of deprivation and rural isolation, especially among young people and communities. Showcase the Street are a registered charity who try to make things like Dance, Fashion and sport and all those cultural subjects affordable for young people and accessible for everyone. Dance styles include Hip Hop, Modern, and Contemporary, with classes for many age groups. They also have our very own dance companies who perform in Hip Hop competitions and events.

Upward Mobility Upward Mobility is an Edinburgh-based charity providing support and opportunities for adults with learning difficulties and autism. As well as providing tailored support services, they have a growing reputation for their curriculum of creative workshops, educational activities and vocational programmes.

The Tower Digital Arts Centre The Tower Digital Arts Centre is a charity which is run for the benefit of the local community. It has a small number of employees and lots of volunteers. The centre has over 100 members though its clubs and relies on their support as well as sponsorship, donations and operational revenues to stay open.

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Speed Networking

Speed Networking returns to this year’s event. This session has, over the years, proved both popular and informative. A key part of hosting a national conference for SENs and their members is about connecting people up from different parts of the country. Speed Networking is one of the first sessions and acts as an ice-breaker not only for those who may have not attended the event before but also for more regular attenders in meeting up with newer faces. It is run in an informal but disciplined way – speed is of the essence!! Feedback suggests that this interactive networking session is both entertaining and valuable way of meeting your peers in a one-on-one situation – make new connections – and, who knows, open the doors to future trading or collaborations.

Discussion Forum

Run simultaneously to the Speed Networking Session, the Discussion Forum is usually attended by Intermediaries and/or support bodies looking into a particular issue facing the wider SE sector in Scotland. Previous topics have included the SE Strategy; the relationship between TSIs and SENs; SE Code of Practice; and SE Support infrastructure – what gaps exist?

Title of discussion this year is Local support infrastructure.

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Breakout Sessions

1. Branding and Marketing - BOLD Social enterprises can have the best products, and people who want to buy from them, but without brand-led marketing, those customers simply won’t know they are there and they will struggle. Branding and advertising has traditionally been seen by the third sector as a dark art used by the private sector to make us buy things we don’t want. But good brand led campaigns are about making things happen. We have found that powerful messages well told can make a huge difference. BOLD is Scotland’s first social enterprise full service branding and marketing agency with experience from small enterprises to large housing associations. This workshop will explore strategic ways to ensure your message is communicated and your products reach the right market place.

2. Cultural Strategy Session - Jennifer Hunter, Culture Counts

The Culture strategy will create an overarching framework to support the long-term development of culture in Scotland. The strategy will position culture as having intrinsic value and contributing both directly and indirectly to the health, wealth and success of our nation, de-fining Scotland as a diverse and distinct society with creativity and innovation at its heart. This interactive session will give participants the opportunity to engage in the strategy consultation process.

3. Joint Thematic SEN – Senscot SEN Coordinators This year Senscot is producing a series of Briefing Papers to highlight the contribution that social enterprise makes to a range of policy areas and showcase the valuable work delivered. This session will - provide an opportunity to feedback on the briefings developed so far; shape the forthcoming briefings; consider how we maximise the benefit for SEN members.

4. U>P Unlocking Potential - Assist Social Capital (ASC) Over the next year, ASC is going to be delivering a pilot on U>P (Unlocking Potential) to demonstrate

impact with 4 SENs - GSEN, DSEN, ESE and the Health SEN. We believe this will provide a broader understanding of the impact the SENs have for their members and the wider sector as well as the benefits that this evaluation approach can bring to Scotland's social enterprise sector by demonstrating the tremendous impact that the sector brings to Scotland. The theme of this year's Conference - 'Collaborating towards a Sharing Economy' - is a great opportunity to invite SEN members and other stakeholders to take a closer look at U>P and find out more about this new Impact Evaluation methodology that has been developed.

5. Partnership for Procurement Session - P4P Team

At present, only around 20% of SEs in Scotland bid for public sector contracts – and these tend to be the larger organisations. However, through working together, smaller organisation could also be better placed to bid for such contracts. This workshop will enable you to explore what’s involved in partnership working / collaboration and what you can achieve by working together when bidding for contracts. You will hear more about P4P and the range of third sector support available. If you want to find out more about using collaboration and building trading relationships - then this workshop is for you.

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Dragons Den

This year’s SE Conference will see a refreshed version of the Dragons’ Den – with the emphasis on the theme of ‘collaboration’. Applications are invited for ‘pitches’ from SEs either delivering or planning to deliver a new or amended service by working in partnership with others. As always a prize of £5k will go to the winning ‘pitch’. Closing date for submitting an application form was Friday 24th November 2017. 15 applications were received and – with some difficulty – this was shortlisted down to 5 entrants who will present to the Dragons on the day. Thanks - and apologies – are due to all those who submitted applications.

The Audience prize will again be ‘crowd-funded’ on the day.

This year’s Dragons are:

Eric Munro – RBS

Pauline Graham – Social Firms Scotland

Yvonne McBride – P4P

Angus Hardie – Scottish Community Alliance

The session will be hosted by Liz Gardiner (Fablevision)

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Interactive Demonstration Session

Dementia and Social Enterprise Products

People are generally living longer and their health is better, thanks to improvements in standards of living and healthcare support. Increasing longevity means we need health and social care services that work well together for people who are living with multiple conditions, complex needs and illnesses such as dementia. Currently there are 90,000 people living in Scotland with dementia. By 2020 it is estimated that there will be around 20,000 new cases diagnosed each year. We know that more people are developing dementia much later in their lives than previously assumed. This demands that services are responsive to the range of challenges that people and their families face.

Introduced by Margaret McCarthy, Crossroads Scotland and Mary Sinclair, Senscot, this session will hear from social enterprises that have developed a product or service aimed at people living with dementia – giving delegates an opportunity to ask questions and see the products in action.

Demonstrations include – Lingo Flamingo; Talking Mats; Sporting Memories and Creating Conversations.

Plenary Session

Spotlight on Failure – myths and reality of sustainability in social enterprise

While the social enterprise model and movement is enjoying a high profile with good national support and numerous positive news stories, the reality on the ground for many can be challenging. Difficult trading conditions and a variety other factors that can lead to some social enterprises barely ‘washing their faces’ financially – or even worse.

The recent SE Census 2017 identified that beneath the hype, the majority of social enterprises are operating on very tight margins. Census findings showed that 41% operated at a loss in 2016/17; average profitability was 4%; and since 2015, 470 social enterprises have either dissolved or de-registered.

As our sector matures, many feel that we need to create an environment in which people are comfortable and open about seeking help and support and that failure or financially difficulty can be recognised as a natural consequence of entrepreneurial and innovative activity.

This session will address some of the issues above and explore how collaboration and mutual support, locally, regionally and nationally can help address these issues.

Chair: Douglas Westwater (Community Enterprise): Panel: Rick Rijsdijk (Social Value Lab); David Cook (Cook Creative / West Ward Works); Tracy Murdoch (Kidzeco); Linda Fay (Life-Pod).

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Delegate List

Alex Baker Social Enterprise Scotland

Joshua Barton Upward Mobility Project

Angela Beardsley Resonate Arts

Graham Bell Social Enterprise Academy

Tom Binns The Piano Project CIC

Raymond Branton Simply Play

Molly Brown Community Enterprise

Sharon Burkey Creating Conversations

Alison Brown CRNS

Diane Cameron Dundee Social Enterprise Network

Sarah Cameron Senscot

Colin Campbell Assist Social Capital

Claire Carpenter The Melting Pot

Edward Chapman How It Felt

Jane Churchill SCA / Cinemor77

Ailsa Clark InspirAlba

Ian Cooke DTA Scotland

David Cook Cook Creative / West Ward Works

Ian Crawford The Caravan Project

Jean Cumming Crisis

Kaja Czuchnicka ACVO TSI

Maurice Donohue Sporting Memories Network

Louise Docherty Unity Enterprise

Becky Duncan Open Aye

James Dunbar New Start Highland

Lorna Edwards Abertay University

Tabi Ewing Assist Social Capital

Sarah Fairbairn Thriving Survivors

Linda Fay Life-Pod CIC

Graeme Ferguson Fife Council

Claudia Fernandez Assist Social Capital

Julie Farr Dundee Social Enterprise Network

Norrie Gallagher Sporting Memories Network

Sally Gallery CEIS (Just Enterprise)

Pamela Galbraith Connecting Scotland

Emma Galloway Balerno Village Trust

Liz Gardiner Fablevision

Loretta Galloway Unity Enterprise

Elaine Gibb Voluntary Action Scotland

Gary Gentles Knightswood Community Centre

Pauline Graham Social Firms Scotland

Sophy Green Instant Neighbour

Alex Green Instant Neighbour

Nicola Hanssen Roar - Connections For Life

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Bruce Gunn DNDP

Gillian Harkness Burness Paull LLP

David Henderson DTA Scotland

James Henderson Edinburgh University

Angus Hardie Scottish Community Alliance

Pauline Hinchion SCRT

Gordon Hodgson Edinburgh SEN

Les Huckfield Glasgow Caley University

Rebecca Holmes Linlithgow Community Development Trust

Jennifer Hunter Scottish Theatre

Rod Hunter Glasgow Wood Recycling

Dr Rosie Ilett Mood Project

Alan Johnston Senscot

Brian Keating The Tower Digital Arts Centre

Jonny Kinross Grassmarket Community Project

Charlotte Lawley Social Enterprise Academy

Josiah Lockhart Firstport

Juile Lundie Unity Enterprise

Karina Macleod Senscot Legal

Bridget Macrae Community Enterprise

Gilly MacWhirter Community Enterprise

Karina Maiden Senscot

Marie Marin Employers for Childcare

Derek Marshall The Factory Skatepark

Chris Martin Callandar Youth Project

Sandra Martin North West Women's Centre

Brian Martin T-UK Skills & Workforce Development

Angie Mason West Lothian Social Enterprise Network

Yvonne McBride P4P

Mags McCarthy Crossroads Scotland

Greg McCracken Museums Galleries Scotland

George McConnachie P4P

Deborah McKean Unity Enterprise

Elizabeth McKenna Glasgow Social Enterprise Network

Gerard McKenzie-Govan The Blankfaces

Jackie McNally Creative Scotland

John McManus Social Firms Scotland

Niall McShannon Clydesdale Community Initiative

Gillian Middleton Community Central Halls

Conrad Molleson Hoda Productions

Angela Moohan The Larder

Tracey Muirhead School for Social Entrepreneurs Scotland

Eric Munro RBS

Joan Murphy Talking Mats

Tracy Murdoch Kidzeco

Janice Nicol Social Firms Scotland

Eddie Nisbet Senscot

Kirsty Noble Senscot Legal

Robbie Norvall Lingo Flamingo

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Susan Oak BRAG Enterprises

Brian O'Rourke Mallaig Pool & Leisure

Georgios Pappas Community Enterprise

Dave Park Community Enterprise

Ross Paterson Fife Council

Jennifer Paterson P4P

Steph Patmore Edinburgh SEN

Claire Pattullo Edinburgh SEN

Victoria Pearce Community Enterprise

Matt Pearce West Calder and Harburn CDT

Fiona Pearson West Lothian SEN

Steve Perry Edinburgh SEN

Gary Porter The Coalfields Regeneration Trust

Aidan Pia Senscot

Peter Rae Link Group Limited

Lynne Robertson North West Women's Centre

Brian Robertson-Fern BRAG Enterprises

Brendan Rooney Healthy N Happy

Dan Rous Greyfriars Charteris Centre

Pasna Sallis Weekday Wow Factor

Bosco Santimano You Can Cook

Pedro Santos ReMake Up CIC

Mark Selvey The Factory Skatepark

Mary Sinclair Senscot

Rachel Smillie Senscot

Emma Soanes Unity Enterprise

Fergus Storier Showcase the Street

Isabella Stevenson StepUp Shoeshine

Cristian Suau Studio Pop

Sue Sulat The Pickaquoy Centre Trust

Doug Summers Community Enterprise

Lou Taylor Fablevision

Michelle Thomson Voluntary Action North Lanarkshire

Tracy Thomson RBS

Maria Throp 1st Step Development

AnnMarie Treacy Deaf Connections

Kim Wallace Senscot

Ann Walsh Enterprise Childcare

David Weir Unity Enterprise

Beth Welsh Pioneer Mutual Credit Union

Chris Wilkins Sporting Memories Network

Douglas Westwater Community Enterprise

Olga Wojciechowska Social Enterprise Academy

Laura Worku Scottish Government

David Wood CRNS

James Wray Weekday Wow Factor

Alison Wright Community Enterprise

Neil Young P4P