As part of the Bradford VCS Personalisation Project, we are offering third sector organisations in Bradford the opportunity to come to a series of free social business planning workshops to help to develop ideas for services for people with Individual Accounts.

The six workshops will take place on Monday afternoons, starting on the 31st of January 2011, then taking place every Monday afternoon (other than 21st February) until 14th March 2011.

Each workshop will cover a key topic which you are likely to need to consider when develop a service as a social enterprise. 

We hope that by coming to the six sessions, and by doing the work that we'll encourage you to do between the sessions, you will make real progress in developing your idea.

The sessions tie in with our social business plan template, which we'll share with you as part of the course. 

We'll tailor the sessions to the needs of the people who sign up, but over seven weeks we are likely to cover:

• Introductions - to eachother, to social enterprise, to social business planning
• DIY market research
• Setting social and financial objectives
• Developing realistic financial projections
• Legal issues - including legal structures
• Marketing

If the course is over-subscribed, we will give priority to organisations that plan to serve older people (as the funding for the Bradford VCS Personalisation Project is primarily for organisations serving older people).

We understand that some people may not be able to attend every session, but again, we will give priority to people who plan to attend all/the majority of sessions. 

The workshops will be at  Age Concern Bradford,  you can see a map on the right.  They don't have onsite parking available however there are plenty of car parks nearby and it is within walking distance from both Bradford interchange and Forster Square stations

This course is a practical course for organisations actively exploring setting up services.  Our aim is that by the end of the course, if you attend the whole course and do the work we suggest in between, you should be able to make real progress in developing your idea.

If you have any questions, please contact us on 0113 318 8685 or jo@socialbusinessbrokers.co.uk