Enterprising Pendle

I chaired a board meeting of Enterprising Pendle - our Community Enterprise Board - on Monday evening. It was very productive - and given our current issues around funding and sustainability, very positive.

Remi Thackrey, our Enterprise Facilitator, reported on activity, in terms of who he's currently supporting and what challenges they face.

It's really encouraging that we now have active clients and that there are benefits being delivered to people who are running businesses, or who are in the process of setting them up.

Enterprising Pendle

Over the last two weeks I attended a 'Boot Camp' at which the leadership team from Enterprising Pendle (our Community Enterprise Board) and Remi Thackrey, our Enterprise Facilitator, were trained. This brings us up to the point where we can now operate as an effective board and hopefully work with active clients to help businesses and social enterprises to be successful.

Last night we had a board meeting and I was elected as chair. I'm really pleased about it - and very grateful to those colleagues who proposed and supported me. My intention is to support my colleagues and ensure we work as harmoniously as we can, whilst endeavouring to reflect the wide variety of different interests across the borough. I think our work is best summed up by the following points.

• Enterprising Pendle is a network of local people with a wide range of experience, who are drawn from every section of our community.

• Enterprising Pendle is committed to supporting local enterprise and helping people to turn their business ideas into reality.

• Enterprising Pendle is a listening network that will give you confidential, high quality, open-ended, FREE OF CHARGE help to develop your idea for a businessor a project.

• Enterprising Pendle employs and works with an Enterprise Facilitator to provide free, confidential support to local people with an idea for starting or expanding a business or project.

• Enterprising Pendle recognises that Pendle’s greatest asset is its people, and together, with a little help from our friends, we will make Pendle a better place to live, work and play.


If any of this chimes with your gut reaction, let me know, as I'd be keen to get you to meet Remi - or get you inducted, so you can become an active board member.

Ernesto Sirolli

Last night I went to see Ernesto Sirolli of the Sirolli Institute talk about Community Enterprise Boards and Enterprise Facilitation. It was very compelling stuff and his delivery is excellent and really passionate. I chatted with Ernesto for about twenty minutes later in the evening about the book he's currently working on - I suggested that he should have an editor, as his publisher had initially suggested a ghost writer. I told him I may know just the man. Smudge...where are you??