Building business skills for Social Enterprises

Social Enterprises that need to develop their skills in consortia building, governance and management can access a suite of new training courses on offer from the Wales Co-operative Centre. The Centre has launched its new Learning and Skills Development Brochure. The brochure details a wide range of timetabled seminars and workshops and a huge list of bespoke training opportunities available to social enterprises across Wales.

This year’s programme of training is aimed at social enterprises that want to grow and deliver economic benefits to their communities. Course subjects include ‘Community Regeneration through Co-operatives’, ‘Employee Ownership’, ‘Developing Co-operative Consortia’, ‘Worker Co-operatives’, ‘Governance’ as well as the ever-popular masterclass, ‘Introduction to Social Enterprise’.

The Centre is also offering new bespoke workshops in Succession Planning, Equal Opportunities and Diversity, Financial Planning and Management, Change Management and Social Media for Business. These are above and beyond the long term programme of bespoke workshops that can be delivered directly to the social enterprise.

The courses are delivered as part of the Wales Co-operative Centre’s Social Enterprise Support Project which is supported by Welsh Government and the European Union. Courses are free to qualifying social enterprises.

The Wales Co-operative Centre also facilitates a series of networking events across Wales aimed at social enterprises. The events offer a mix of business themed workshops, speakers, networking and the opportunity to share information and form partnerships.

Social Enterprise Support Project Manager Nicola Mehegan commented, “Our new programme of learning and skills development offers a range of opportunities for social enterprises to develop, sustain and grow their businesses. We offer a training needs analysis to organisations allowing us to cater directly to their training needs. We also offer a scheduled timetable of informative workshops and seminars which have proved very popular in previous years and last years were fully booked”.

The 2012/13 Learning and Skills Development Brochure can be downloaded fromwww.walescooperative.org/training. Places can be booked by visiting the website or by calling 0300 111 5050.