The Melting Pot E-Bulletin July 2008
Ever been sailing? Being ‘in stays’ is a momentary lull or slack point that happens when you’re ‘going about’, adjusting your course of direction and when the wind has not yet put power into the sail.
After 9 months piloting our offering, we’ve taken time during the summer slow-down to plot with more detail our course ahead – how do we grow and build this community? Now we’ve got ‘here’, how are we going to get ‘there’? The reality of developing ideas is that they come in stages, like chapters of a good book.
Over the next 6 months we’d like to hear from you what would put power into our sails - on how we can inspire and support people to realise their ideas for a better world.
Invitations to focus groups and to our 1st year anniversary will follow...
Social Capital: small steps to building our community of social innovators...
Every month our members are invited to a private lunch, to get their heads together and hear what we’re each doing, and to give and receive advice. If nothing else we stop working for an hour, and concentrate on relationships that support and connect us.
The following links came up through our conversation, which we hope you’ll find interesting and useful.
WWF Scotland report "Weathercocks and Signposts".
Weathercocks and Signposts critically reassesses current approaches to motivating environmentally-friendly behaviour change. Current behaviour-change strategies are increasingly built upon analogy with product marketing campaigns. They often take as given the ‘sovereignty’ of consumer choice, and the perceived need to preserve current lifestyles intact.
This report constructs a case for a radically different approach. It presents evidence that any adequate strategy for tackling environmental challenges will demand engagement with the values that underlie the decisions we make – and, indeed, with our sense of who we are.
And various blogs and links on psychology and climate change:
www.valuingnature.org
A short animated film: "The Story of Stuff"
The next member’s lunch will be on Friday 1st August 2008. Open to Members only.
Cost £2.50. Please RSVP by the 24th July to: rich [at] themeltingpotedinburgh.org.uk
New Offerings: Interview hosting service & Large Function Suite
Interview Room with Interviewee Hosting Service
Put a polishing touch to you recruitment process. Allow us to actively host your candidates when you hold interviews in our meeting room.
Click here for more information (.pdf)
Large Function Suite
Enjoy private use of the whole of The Melting Pot for your weekend functions: for public consultations, social gatherings, AGMs…
Click here for more information (.pdf)
For more information on these new services, please get in touch on 0131 243 2626
To explore The Melting Pot using our Virtual Tour, click here.
A new Fringe comes to Edinburgh!
Thousands of business tourists come to Edinburgh every year. This September, 400 people working globally in social enterprise will come to the Social Enterprise World Forum.
The Melting Pot has teamed up with Networks First & SENSCOT to provide a fringe event, connecting local grassroots innovators and entrepreneurs, to our global counterparts.
Date for your diary is 4th September, more information to follow or by contacting Anna[at]sencot.net
Can't get here soon? Take a Virtual Tour of The Melting Pot!
Click on an image to look around. To move around the room: click, hold and move your mouse.
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Produced by FullVisual - Edinburgh Virtual Tour
"Virtual tours add a new dimension to your website, exciting and
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Our workshop space has become more flexible through a number of removable and movable curtains to create break out spaces within the room.
We’d like to say a big thank you to Angus Mackie for his assistance in getting them up, and John Lewis for their kind sponsorship.
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wind."
Melting Pot Member Sara MacLennan, of The Powerpod Project, on climate change and renewable energy peer education.
One of the peer educators of the Powerpod emailed Bob Dylan to ask whether he had been anticipating the future questions of energy resources when he sang those helpful words back in the 60s. He’s not had a reply yet.
A number of the group are just back from a trip to the Centre of Alternative Technology in Wales, where the peer educators discovered that a large proportion of the answer also lies in the waves, the tides, the sun and our rivers as well as making sure that people realise the limit and the value of our energy resources. Not such a snappy line for a song.
Luckily, the project doesn’t involve lyrics; the peer educators stick to running workshops&games in schools and festivals, accompanied by the ‘Powerpod’, a demonstration trailer of renewable energy. Currently, solar and wind power create electricity for charging phones, making smoothies (and straightening hair at T in the Park...). After inspiration at CAT, we’re hoping to add displays of the various water energy sources to the trailer. Furthermore, a few are heading into the workshop to make a hand operated generator, which can demonstrate the amount of human kinetic energy required for an mp3 player.
It has been an exciting year for the project, now with 52 peer educators taking an active role. It has also 
been an interesting year for the development of renewable energy, with young people realising that it is themselves who will be designing the technology of the future and living lives where energy is viewed in a different light.
With that in mind, the management committee have decided that the Powerpod Project should continue, even without Bobby D’s endorsement.
Betsy Reed is Co-ordinator for the Scottish Fair Trade Forum. The Forum works to make Scotland one of the world’s first Fair Trade Nations. To learn more, visit www.sftf.org.uk and look for their new website in September 2008!
"I recently visited Fairtrade tea factories in Kenya. I saw new roads, schools and hospitals built with Fairtrade money, but, for me, the real story was the people whose lives have changed because of these projects.
Frida Mabeu is a final-year student who has already been accepted to study medicine at university and plans to return to her home community to practice medicine. Unless a secondary school had been built in her community with Fairtrade money, she would have finished school at age 14 and been left with few options. Fairtrade has changed her life forever, and she will in turn change her community in the future.
One factory that sells only 2% of its tea to Fairtrade (because that is all there is currently demand for) has used the Fairtrade profit to become the most energy-efficient factory in Kenya, with support and training facilitated by Cafedirect. This means they cut down fewer trees to burn and extra profit from lowered production costs are fed straight back to the community.
The Kenyans I met are intensely aware of climate change. They understand that cutting down trees to fuel their factories accelerates climate change, but they are faced with a stark choice: cut down trees to fuel production of their main cash crop or leave the trees and starve.
Fair Trade may not be the answer to eliminating global poverty, but it is certainly an answer - one that empowers poor people through giving them an opportunity to improve their own lives, their communities and their future. It is trade, not aid, and it certainly has its place."
Member's Profile: The Centre for Human Ecology
The Centre for Human Ecology is a network for ecological and social transformation.
We offer courses for people who are looking for ways to initiate effective, enduring change. We’re now accepting applications for 2008-09.
Drawing on a holistic understanding of environmental and social systems, we develop practical solutions and influence new thinking. Committed to systemic change, our approach engages head, heart, and hand – integrating reason, passion, and action for a better world.
The Melting Pot is a wonderful living example of work for social transformation, founded by Claire Carpenter, a graduate of the MSc in Human Ecology.
Our courses include the MSc in Human Ecology, and short courses that can be taken as Continuing Professional Development such as Action Research, Ethical Enterprise, Food Culture and Agri-Culture, Sustaining Ecosystems, Ecopsychology and Spiritual Activism. Courses are run in partnership with the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow.
For more details of our courses, visit www.che.ac.uk or pick up a leaflet from The Melting Pot!
Environmental Association for Universities and Colleges: Scotland Manager
£28,290 - £31,840. Based at our Edinburgh office. Ref: S585
The sustainability champion for UK universities and colleges has a fantastic post for an exceptional person.
An ambitious and demanding post to realise our Strategic Plan in Scotland and deliver our wide ranging Campus Sustainability Programme (CaSPr) in universities and colleges. You will further develop the business of the Association, widen its funding base and enhance its products and services.
The manager will be part of and receive support from the Head Office based in Cheltenham and will deliver and contribute to wider Association activities and targets.
You will have a proven track record of generating and managing funding, with project management skills and be an excellent communicator.
Closing date: Postal applications Friday 15th August, electronic applications Sunday 17th August.
For further information and an application pack please visit www.eauc.org.uk or email info[at]eauc.org.uk or telephone 01242 714321.
The Melting Pot are delighted to be a Patron of Junior Chamber International Edinburgh.
Death of a Salesman
July 21st 18:30 at The Melting Pot. To reserve a place then please email enterprise[at]ejcc.org.uk
Are you thinking of starting your own business, or have you already begun and are now wondering where to find those customers or how to get them to buy when you do? Then this JCI Enterprise workshop could be for you.
An informal workshop led by Murray Wilkinson, founder of the Camargue Group, who will share his hints and tips on how to be a great salesman! Murray has been selling cars since his early twenties and after a successful career which saw him head hunted by one of the largest prestige dealer groups in Scotland he left to set up his own company in 2003. In the last 5 years Murray has built his own company into the successful Camargue Group which now supplies over 300 vehicles a year with a turnover of over 2.5 million. Not that Murray intends to stop there, with plans to expand the business further and ultimately make it a franchise he will continue to grow his business. This is a great opportunity to hear from someone with a fantastic record in sales and how to apply those hints and tips to your own business, I’m sure this will be an invaluable session.
As always there will be time for some informal networking , a chance to ask questions and share ideas with people who have also started their own business over a glass of wine.
If you know of anyone else who would benefit from this session then please feel free to pass on the invitation.
To book your place, please contact enquires[at]cobaltaccountancy.co.uk or call 0131 468 8500
Series 1: What You Need To Know
These two hour courses were designed to give the owners of small businesses a solid grounding on book keeping, tax and accounting. Cost £20 per person per course.
Tue 22th July What you need to know about accounts
Tue 29th July What you need to know about taxes
Series 2: One-Man-Band to Entrepreneur
These two hour courses designed for the owners of growing businesses, moving from working in to working on their business. Cost £70 per person per course.
Thur 17th July How to strengthen your balance sheet
Thur 24th July Exit planning and maximising business worth
Thur 31st July How to make the most of business plans and projections
Aspire to Enterprise is a new Scottish Government funded programme providing a range of Business Support Services to ambitious, developing social enterprises in central and lowland Scotland.
The programme offers access to development support to organisations with the drive and potential to increase their trading activity to become more sustainable enterprises. Aspire to Enterprise aims to help organisations gain the skills they need to improve sustainability. The programme also aims to assist social enterprises to achieve sufficient growth to access future business development support through Business Gateway.
The programme is open and will accept applications throughout 2008 from those organisations who meet the following eligibility criteria:
* The government criteria for social enterprise
* Are already trading
* Have a minimum total turnover of £60K per annum (this can include funding income)
* Can benefit from tailored development assistance prior to accessing mainstream support
Social enterprises successful in accessing the programme will receive a business health check and up to 8 days of a tailored programme of business support aimed at developing their trading capacity. Support will usually cover things like:
* Business planning
* Financial planning
* Market research and marketing
* Investment readiness and raising finance
* Legal support
Alternatively, aspiring social enterprises can benefit from a range of seminars designed to stimulate entrepreneurial activity for future development.
The online application process takes approximately 30 minutes and can be made via the website www.aspiretoenterprise.org.uk
The Melting Pot: E-bulletin © July 2008