Since moving to the North West I have been very keen to visit my fellow social enterprise ambassadors and so went to see Clare Dove within the first few weeks of moving up. It took a little more planning to visit Daniel Heery though. Dan is literally based in the middle of nowhere and is the most northerly of all the SE ambassadors, living and working in Alston, Cumbria.
I had a few meetings in Lancashire and an evening meeting in Cumbria, so I thought I would ‘pop’ in and see Dan in the afternoon. I soon realised you don’t just ‘pop’ anywhere in Cumbria. ‘Just 20 miles off the M6’ doesn’t sound too bad (apart from the fact that junction 40 is basically the one before Scotland) and then its 20 miles of the most winding , twisting, single lane roads which I carefully negotiated behind a German lorry delivering bedding plants?? (No doubt his SatNav had decided it was a good route to Newcastle) I have to say though it is without doubt the most beautiful 20 miles I’ve ever driven.
Alston is set at the foot of a mountain (which you go over to reach it). I was glad it was summer! The village is absolutely beautiful, what you might expect from a Cumbrian location but actually a bit more special in real life.
What’s more, Alston is a social enteprise hotspot. Dan said there were 12 social enterprises located within the immediate village area. I did wonder whether whoever calculated the 55,000 social enterprises figure in the UK had actually just stopped after visiting Alston and thought ‘sod it, we’ll just correlate the figures from here’! Either way it’s a pretty impressive thing.
Dan’s Social Enterprise, Cybermoor, is located in the Town Hall which when I arrived was undergoing renovations. I found him at the top of a flight of stairs in an unassuming office at the end of the hall. The first thing you notice is the technology everywhere. Parabolic satellite dishes, computers, monitors, servers. This is definitely a technology based Social Enterprise.
I knew from our previous meetings that Dan had established wireless broadband connections for people living in Alston and nearby villages when BT wouldn’t touch them – great idea, but it wasn’t until I visited that I realised the true extent of what Dan has achieved with Cybermoor and just how impressive his Social Enterprise is.
Building on the broadband link, Cybermoor applied for funding to provide isolated rural homes with computers, then promptly distributed them. Having created a new wireless network of previously unconnected people in one of the most remote areas of the country, Dan realised the huge value of this link and its potential value to public sector agencies who would really like to reach this group.
The genius in Dan’s Social Enterprise was in making several sideways links to other social opportunities. Seizing the NHS Social Enterprise Pathfinders funding opportunity, Cybermoor successfully pitched an idea to link health professionals to those they previously had little chance of reaching. The idea is to put health monitoring equipment into people’s homes and then link it over Cybermoor’s wireless network to the NHS. This would give patients the ability to measure their weight on a daily basis and sent it to the NHS through the TV with a set top box. Any variations can be spotted straight away and someone dispatched to administer whatever care is needed.
The thing that really hits you about Cybermoor and Dan is that his clear lateral thinking and building upon the organisation's core competencies have enabled him to achieve even greater social value than his initial great idea. Cybermoor is a fantastic Social Enterprise run by a dedicated and tallented Social Entrepreneur. Well worth a drive up the M6!
I feel a bit like I’m in “Life on Mars”…
“My name is Matt. I left my social enterprise, and woke up in the
Well, perhaps its not that dramatic(!) but this year I left Unique Coffee Bar, a multi award winning, hugely successful social enterprise based in the
When I announced I would be leaving Unique, some asked if I was mad, others questioned whether moving to a traditional charity was really a good idea, and some wondered whether Unique would continue without it’s founding entrepreneur at the helm.
These are difficult questions to answer, but I do know it felt like the right time to move on. My role had changed significantly from when I started in 2000. I went from youth worker, to manager, to entrepreneur, to CEO. I did an MBA to learn about business management and became quite good at the systems and processes.
However, there was a definite shift away from being entrepreneurial towards focussing on operations and general management. Despite being reasonably good at both, I much prefer a balance in favour of the entrepreneurial! As a result it was becoming clear that I would add less and less value as time went on. It was time to leave – but the question was, what next?
There were several things about Young Enterprise North West which attracted me to the job. Firstly, there was the opportunity to work with young people in the enterprise field and to use that opportunity to tell more young people about Social Enterprise. Secondly, there was the opportunity to work for an organisation which has a long standing relationship with the Private Sector, and especially to see how that relationship can be developed to create mutual social and environmental benefit. Finally, there was an opportunity to take the organisation through a similar transition from charity to social enterprise as I had done with Unique – something which I really enjoyed.
During the two day interview process, I set out my stall for social enterprise and was very clear about where I was coming from and where I wanted to take the organisation. I remember going home on the second day thinking they’ll either love it or hate it…It was a very liberating experience though, being so open and honest rather than trying to work out what I thought they wanted me to say. Fortunately for me my honesty paid off and they offered me the job!
It seems to me that there are a number of charities out there who are beginning to realise they cannot rely on grant funding and are now ready to make the transition to social enterprise. How many ‘social enterprises in disguise’ are there out there though who have not taken that final step yet? The challenge for them and me is to change long standing cultures in order to become more business like, more efficient and more focussed trading entities. This is exactly what I will be doing at Young Enterprise North West.
I've had a great welcome in the North West. The staff team at Young Enterprise North West are fantastic and incredibly enthusiastic, as are the Board. I've also recieved a really warm welcome from the Social Enterprise movement up here - especially from my fellow SE Ambassador Claire Dove at Blackburne House in Liverpool.
So was I mad to leave Unique and move to the
