A wave of communication washed over Glasgow’s River Clyde on Saturday 28 April when a major public art event harnesses the power of mediaeval catapults, St Kilda mail boats, a soundscape of sea shanties, extracts from Upper Clyde hero Jimmy Reid’s speeches, and a Govan Armada, to blur the natural and man-made boundaries between both sides of the river.

Led by artists Matt Baker and t s Beall as part of The Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art 2012, Nothing About Us Without Us Is For Us, was a two-way dialogue of friendly fire across the Clyde, which deploys obsolete technology and even flotsam and jetsam to build a bridge of communication across the Clyde.

Part action and part experiment, the free event was the culmination of six weeks of collaboration between Baker and Beall with artists, local multi-generational groups, and cultural organisations from both sides of the Clyde and the Parish of Govan, focusing on the theme of long-distance (particularly maritime) communication.

On Saturday 28 April, these workshops culminated in a community celebration day when all the different forms of communication were put into play in an attempt to convey messages across the river; the event was hosted on both sides of the river by The Riverside Museum.

The raw materials of the project are fragments of language that at different periods of history have claimed to represent Govan and is part of larger effort to join up Glasgow by reaching across the city’s majestic natural boundary.

“We are excited and honoured to be working with so many wonderful individuals and organizations,” the artists explain. “By using layers of Govan’s rich ancient history and contemporary culture, this experimental event aims to bring people to the Clyde, as well giving them fresh opportunities to understand and appreciate this amazing asset in our city, plus have some fun at a free event that’s open to everyone.

“More than anything Nothing about us… is an experiment, an exercise or action in communication, and an attempt to consider art and the role of artists in thinking about places. The project is a day where the reality of failed communication will be both celebrated and transformed.

 Three golden ages of Govan

‘Govan has had two eras of greatness – that is two more than most places.’

Professor Stephen Driscoll

Time was when both sides of the Clyde could be forded, and it’s not too much of a stretch to say that Govan was once Scotland’s Camelot, as the first golden age refers to The Early Mediaeval period when Govan was home to the royal court of the Ancient Kingdom of Strathclyde.

Next came the glorious era of the Shipyards spanning 19th and mid 20th century when Govan was one of the major shipbuilding centres of the world. Now Govan is contemplating its third golden age age with the new Riverside Museum designed by Zaha Hadid, and the Science Centre, as well as being a media hub with the BBC and STV HQs.

Ian Pattison, the creator of Govan’s most famous fictional son Rab C Nesbitt, is one of many Govanites who welcomes the Nothing About Us event: “It’s great to see local Govan people reclaiming the river in an imaginative way as part of their daily cultural landscape. 

“As kids we would travel on the two ferries, the passenger ferry at the foot of McKechnie Street and the traffic ferry at Water Row, over the ocean to exotic Partick. Back then, the river seemed as busy as Sauchiehall Street.”

On the day, there were several boats on the water including the Kelvinhaugh Ferry and the GalGael’s timber birlinn. Nothing for about us without us is for us is an ongoing project that will manifest over a period of time, as Govan is re-asserts itself in more creative ways while remembering its past.

The Govan Armada

Location – displayed near to Ferry Pontoons (on both sides of river) before being launched The Govan Armada is a fleet of small model boats made from ‘redeveloped rubbish’ (flotsam) collected from the Clyde and each carrying a message should someone find the boat washed up. The boats were made by young people and community groups from Govan, and visitors to GI festival, with help from artists Martin Campbell, t s Beall, and Matt Baker.

Trebuchets x 2 (mediaeval siege catapults, aka ‘The Charm Offensive’)

Locations – On former slipway of H+W shipyard (Southside) on main river concourse Riverside Museum (to eastern edge)

Glasgow Museums specialist Grant Leckie oversaw the building of two machines at The GalGael Trust and their operation at the event. The largest Trebuchet has a range of 180m and was launched special ‘art cargo’ (created by Colin Begg and Belinda Gilbert-Scott) towards the opposite bank. Visitors were invited to ‘fish’ for the cargo and/or see it retrieved by boats.

Marine Signal Flags

Locations – Govan New Parish Church, Water Row, Showpeople’s Site, The Tallship During the week leading up to the event, messages were exchanged across the river via marine signal flags displayed on two prominent buildings in Govan and the Tallship on the Partick side of the Clyde. Flags were constructed by three local groups in collaboration with artists Alex Bowie, Fiona Fleming, and Geraldine Greene.

On the 28 April the flags were visible on buildings and Tallship – but smaller versions were also run up and down the flagpoles by the river’s edge.

Voices

A synchronized performance of human voices involving members of several local choirs, led by artist Steven Anderson.

Past Patter: Voices of The Clyde

Locations – Harland Way (Southside) and on main river concourse Riverside Museum Archeologists from Northlight Heritage had a number of ‘translation stations’ each manned by interpreters of different languages from the past and present on the Clyde (Brythonic, Urdu, etc.). Visitors were offered the chance to translate messages into a new language and then to be part of communicating this across the river.

String and Cup Telephones

Locations – Harland Way (Southside) and on main river concourse Riverside Museum Funnel sculptures temporarily fixed to the railings – with a lightweight cord running across the river and connected to similar funnels on the opposite bank, made by artist Kate V. Robertson.

Visitors were encouraged to use the String and Cup telephones to send messages across the river.

ZUMBA, decoupage, a crèche and a Koran study group are just a few of the weekly events taking place in Maryhill Community Hall. It might be in the middle of Scotland’s biggest city but it still struggles to get people through its doors.That was until one of its funders said it could only get cash if it restructured the way it operated and became more business-like. `

So it did. But opening its doors to more groups involved a root-and-branch re-organisation of the way the hall’s governing committee was run.

It needed new blood in the form of expertise in finance, legal structures and a chair who was able to have an eye on running a business as much as a voluntary organisation.

Easier said than done but Jim Herrington, the committee’s convener, believes all halls need to wake up to the 21st century or they’ll cease to exist.

“It’s not easy, especially when you effectively have to sack your old board but funders demand business plans, income generation schemes and a return for their investment.

“So if you want the money you have to come up with a decent structure and be able to prove the community is going to use the facility.”

His own committee is now made up of more experienced members who are able to use their knowledge to run the hall.

They’ve also recruited a voluntary PR professional who’s able to generate stories in the local press as well as creating a monthly online newsletter that goes out to over 2,000 people in Maryhill.

“We effectively reinvented ourselves to get funding we needed,” said Harrington. “If we didn’t we’d have to close. It’s difficult and you have to really work at it but I don’t think funders are being unreasonable. You have to diversify in all walks of life and accept change. It’s difficult but it can work.”

The committee now has a business manager who overseas income generation. Many similar sized venues might baulk at the notion but it does make sense as it enables groups to become more enterprising.

“We did a scoping study to see what type of activity people wanted the hall to hold. It came up with all the usual – fitness classes, childcare etc – but crucially also enabled us to do outreach with people from ethnic communities in the area, something we hadn’t done before. And now we’ve got a lot of events which are available to a wider section of the public.”

What’s more, the Maryhill Centre, as it is now known, is reaching out to neighbouring organisations and helping them get more business-like with their community centres.

“We see it as one of our priorities to help other groups. We help them with funding, publicity and management. We’ve already helped three get on their feet on a consultation basis.

“If you’ve got the expertise then you should flaunt it in the right direction.”

A copy of the project report can be downloaded here.

In recent years, politicians across the UK have talked of helping communities to help themselves. Scotland already has a rich and diverse voluntary sector, together with a strong policy record on community ownership.  In ‘Housing Associations and the Big Society: Lessons from Scotland’s community housing sector’, Dr Kim McKee suggests there is much the rest of the UK can learn from this experience. 

Research published today, funded by the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland, suggests community-controlled housing associations, led by local people, hold the key to successful community regeneration in Scotland’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. More than just landlords, these organisations are anchored in their communities, providing vital services in an era of reduced public spending. 

McKee of the Centre for Housing Research at the University of St Andrews said:

“Housing associations are key frontline agencies in Scotland’s low-income communities. They harness the talents and energy of local people and support grass-roots solutions to local problems. These organisations provide a strong vehicle to rethink public service delivery at the neighbourhood level and have an important social role in the communities that they serve, acting as catalysts for community development and regeneration. 

Despite these strengths, associations face a number of barriers in unlocking their potential, as changes to the funding and regulation of social housing in Scotland represent challenging obstacles to developing their wider role. Government support is vital to enable associations to flourish in their capacity as anchor organisations.”

A copy of the project report can be downloaded here. More information can also be obtained from the report author, Dr Kim McKee, Lecturer in Geography at the University of St Andrews.

Author: The Guardian, Severin Carrell, 24/04/12

The charity’s Scottish arm has used measures including health, transport, family life and employment to evaluate quality of life.

Anti-poverty campaigners at Oxfam have created a new technique for measuring quality of life and social justice in Britain which they claim has found major flaws in mainstream policies on jobs and economic growth.

The charity said its new Humankind Index, launched on Tuesday, was a far more accurate measure of people’s wellbeing and happiness than focusing on GDP and employment rates, and had found deep-seated and significant problems which had been ignored by successive governments.

It said the index – designed by Oxfam’s Scotland office using 18 measures ranging from health, transport, family life and experiences of work to access to parks – found most people put much greater weight on the quality of their lives and work than on material wealth and success.

While quality of life for most people in Scotland had improved slightly, by 1.2%, between 2007-08 and 2009-10, this was chiefly due to improvements in their health and community spirit.

The index, which is now being evaluated by UK government statisticians and Scottish government civil servants, estimated that in contrast, there had been a 43% fall in people’s financial security, a 26% fall in the number of people who felt they had secure and suitable jobs and a 24% decline in those who felt they had enough to live on.

It had also detected a growing “lag” in the wellbeing and experiences of the most deprived communities compared to the average; Oxfam said that raised serious questions about the damage being done by the recession and the stress from flexible, temporary and part-time working demanded by government ministers and the modern jobs market.

Over the same two-year period, while the index overall had gone up, for the poorest it had fallen behind: they had experienced a 40% gap in the quality and safety of their local environment and streets, a 16% difference in their ability to manage financially, and a 10% gap in their health.

Judith Robertson, the head of Oxfam Scotland, said the index “goes beyond simplistic economic measures like GDP. It reminds us that the economy should serve its people, not the other way around.

“We’re often told that we live in a materialistic world, but Scots are not saying they want to be millionaires. They want a stable, secure income that allows them to care for their families and take part in society. Many people don’t have that and they told us that Scotland’s economy isn’t working for them.”

In a major collaboration with the New Economics Foundation, the Fraser of Allander economics thinktank at Strathclyde university, the pollsters YouGov and the Scottish TUC, the Humankind Index was developed by Oxfam Scotland after more than 3,000 people were interviewed using conventional opinion polling; focus groups and workshops which included groups such as African refugees, and those on low incomes; setting up street stalls and online questionnaires.

The new methodology, which weighted each type of measure based on the importance that the public gave them and then applied them to official data, is now being studied by experts at the Office for National Statistics in Newport, who are working on David Cameron’s “happiness index” to measure wellbeing.

It is also being considered by senior Oxfam executives for use across the UK and as part of the charity’s work on sustainable living and on new measures of inequality, as well as by Oxfam offices overseas in “middle economy” countries such as Brazil.

Dr Katherine Trebeck, the Oxfam UK poverty project adviser who oversaw the Humankind Index, said the new method was far more sophisticated and far-reaching than Cameron’s “happiness agenda”, which was influenced in turn by the work of the London School of Economics professor Lord Layard, author of Happiness: Lessons from a New Science.

“This isn’t about ‘happiness’. We’re not asking people ‘are they happy,'” Trebeck said. “It’s about collective wellbeing; it’s about what communities need and is more asset-focused, rather than saying to someone ‘are you happy?’.

“The Indian economist Amartya Sen said you can bear adversity cheerfully, but that doesn’t mean you’re not experiencing adversity. This is about inclusion and social justice.”

Stephen Boyd, assistant director of the Scottish TUC, said the index had strengthened his belief that the current dominance of part-time, temporary and casual work was having a “hugely detrimental effect” on people’s quality of life, by confirming that many people in work felt insecure and dissatisfied.

Scottish government figures showed more than 500,000 people, nearly a fifth of the total workforce, were “underemployed” and in unstable jobs. “There are huge issues with the quality of life and work for our citizens,” he said.

“We’ve been told for 30 years that flexible labour markets are the absolute lynchpin of economic success. The Humankind Index suggests that we’re not as successful as perhaps we’ve been told, compared to other nations.”

Gehan MacLeod, the founder of GalGael, an alternative employment charity in Govan, Glasgow, was closely involved in the project and said the index offered policymakers the chance to finally address the root causes of drug addiction, mental illness and repeat offending experienced by her charity’s clients.

“It gives us different anchor points to judge our success or otherwise as a society: we need large-scale structural change,” she said.

“It’s a framework by which that shift in values can be taken to the policy and decision-making level; to inform decisions and policies which should be more appropriate and more relevant, making more of a difference to the experience of our participants.”

Author: Jason Saul

Takeaways from the 2012 Skoll World Forum by Jason Saul

A new brand of social entrepreneurship is emerging.

The Skoll World Forum—an amazing alchemy of the world’s greatest social entrepreneurs, big thinkers, financiers, philanthropists, and academics—is often a zeitgeist of the latest thinking in the social sector, and this year didn’t disappoint. While the officially programmed theme of the conference was “flux,” the real themes played out in informal hallway chatter, over drinks with colleagues at the Oxford Retreat pub, and in the Twittersphere.

Having participated in a number of these informal “sessions”—in addition to moderating a formal one—I sat down to consider what I heard. Here are my five main takeaways:

1. It’s OK to make an economic return from solving social problems. There was a sea change in thinking this year; social entrepreneurs seemed increasingly fascinated by the market as a mechanism to advance their social agendas. Scott Gilmore at Peace Dividend Trust (PDT) is a case in point. PDT renamed itself Building Markets (the name transition says it all) and even created a spin-out for-profit affiliate called Anchor Chain to leverage the private sector in advancing its mission of building local supply chains. I also spoke to the founder of a leading nonprofit consultancy who confided that he wished he had founded his organization as a for-profit instead, admitting “It really doesn’t matter these days, and the transparency is a real problem for us.”

Heidi Kuhn, Roots of Peace founder, and her daughter Kyleigh are the perfect inter-generational metaphor of the times: Both aim to impact the quality of life for Afghanistan’s poor, but in very different ways. Heidi founded a nonprofit to remove landmines and help Afghan farmers tap into the market by teaching new, higher-value agricultural practices; Kyleigh created a for-profit business called Twenty Four Suns to help local artisans in Afghanistan by creating a market for them in the US.

Also, funders themselves seemed increasingly open to the market as a force for change. One foundation director I spoke with openly contemplated investing in for-profits alongside traditional grants: “Why not?” she asked, “If we’re really about impact, it shouldn’t matter!”

2. Measurement is no longer optional. Measurement had its big coming out party at Skoll this year as the foundation announced its first attempt at portfolio-level measurement. The language and references this year were different too. In past years, there was always talk of “effectiveness” and “accountability,” but this year, I heard more about “returns,” “moving the needle,” and measuring “value.”  Foundations and corporations alike appeared universally obsessed with measurement—no doubt due to upstream pressure to demonstrate some ROI.

I had a fascinating conversation with Andrea Coleman of Riders for Health who found the Skoll Foundation’s focus on outcomes liberating from the regime of randomized control trials imposed by other funders. It was good to see Jed Emerson (father of social return on investment) make a return to the forum and say that he was glad to see the measurement conversation finally happening in earnest.

3. We’re in an age of social entrepreneurship 2.0. This year I observed a new breed of social entrepreneur—more entrepreneur than social. These entrepreneurs (mostly nonprofits) have flipped the paradigm; they see social change more as a business strategy than as a charity program. These social entrepreneurs are finding new and creative ways to leverage the market to advance their social agenda.

Kiva.org is a good example. Kiva’s head of development, Bennett Grassano, and I talked about the evolution of Kiva’s strategy—going beyond microfinance to become a source for microlending to other “social markets,” such as education (for example, scholarships) and affordable housing. Ned Breslin from Water for People is another example of social entrepreneurship 2.0. Ned describes his organization’s work as creating new “water economies” in emerging markets like Rwanda and Honduras, and has leveraged the private sector to catalyze his market development efforts.

4. It’s cool to be corporate. “I never thought we’d have a McDonald’s representative sitting at the Skoll World Forum … and I’m massively excited!” So said Pamela Hartigan, who directs the Skoll Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford and moderated a panel on partnerships between social entrepreneurs and big business. In opening the panel, Pamela observed that there is an exciting movement inside companies led by social “intrapreneurs” who are leveraging the core business to make positive social change and profits. McDonald’s presented together with the Marine Stewardship Council to discuss the rollout of sustainable fisheries and eco-labeling Filet-O-Fish sandwiches in Europe.

McDonald’s was just one of 150 companies at Skoll this year-more than double the companies who attended in 2011. Corporations have crossed over into the mainstream of social change. It’s no wonder: Last year, corporations in the US. generated $1.6 trillion in profits, representing the single largest potential source of funding for social agendas. In the session I moderated, Beyond Charity: from Reporting to Returns, Cisco made a presentation about its new approach to market development partnerships (MDPs).

5. People want to move the needle. This year, the dialogue seemed more elevated and urgent than in the past. Entrepreneurs and funders are increasingly impatient with the pace of change; the conversations seemed much more focused on transformation, scalability, and sustainability than ever before. There appears to be a growing distinction between those who are content to “do good” versus those who are committed to “solving social problems” within our lifetime. Some of this urgency is driven by the growing number of living mega-donors, including Jeff Skoll, Gordon Moore, and Bill Gates, and others who are increasingly impatient with the charitable approach of funding nonprofit programs and hoping they add up to something. Questions I heard time and again were:  “Are we really moving the needle?” and “How do I answer the ‘so what’ question?”

It’s clear that there is a “new” brand of social entrepreneurship emerging—one that is more market-driven, measurement-oriented, and corporate-friendly than before. The question is: Will these trends lead to greater social impact?

Author: The Herald Scotland, by Alison Shaw, 27/04/12

Born: October 11, 1942; Died: April 25, 2012.

Stephen Maxwell, who has died aged 69, was a councillor, SNP activist and one-time leadership contender, leading theorist and outstanding contributor to Scotland’s voluntary sector.

At the time of his death he had just completed his latest literary contribution, an analytical polemic Arguing for Independence. The proofs were at the publishers but, like his dream of independence, he would never see it come to fruition. The title was his lifelong rallying cry – once he had abandoned the Labour Party, appalled at Hugh Gaitskell’s support for the nuclear deterrent.

His decision coincided with the rise of the independence movement in Scotland and sowed the seeds of a political career that would see him rise to prominence in the SNP and become a founding member of the Scottish Independence Convention, while lecturing and contributing professionally within the voluntary sector.

It was an extraordinary working life in which he inevitably put his principles before his own gain, political or otherwise – an attitude that cost him professionally on more than one occasion.

The son of a surgeon, who was killed in a car crash when Mr Maxwell was 14, he was born in Edinburgh and educated at Pocklington School in Yorkshire after the family moved south. Always interested in writing, he was a member of the school’s literary society where he met poet Philip Larkin, sharing a train journey with the writer who had accepted an invitation to the society.

He won a scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA (Hons) in moral sciences in 1963. The following year he made his first attempt to become a journalist and had a brief and unsuccessful spell as a trainee on a newspaper in Sheffield. It came to an abrupt end when he was sacked for refusing to interview a grieving family whose daughter had died in dreadful circumstances.

He went on to complete his MSc at the London School of Economics in 1965, becoming the first to gain a distinction in his course, before tutoring at the LSE on strategic studies and lecturing in international politics at Sussex University.

Returning to Edinburgh in the early 1970s, he continued in academia on a Chatham House research fellowship in international affairs at Edinburgh University until 1973, later tutoring and lecturing on British government and politics, Scottish government and new political and social movements. He also taught social policy in Scotland at Edinburgh University, becoming an honorary fellow of politics and social policy there, and lectured at Glasgow Caledonian University’s business management department.

Once back home he also embraced the cause of the Scottish Nationalists, where his rational thinking steered him towards political debate and theory. He became the SNP’s national press officer from 1973-78, served as an SNP councillor for Wester Hailes on Lothian Regional Council from 1975-78 and held the vice-chairmanship of the party from 1978-82.

Unflinching in his support for independence, he was also national campaign director of the SNP devolution referendum campaign in 1979.

As a man who believed that nationalism and the left were synonymous, it was not surprising he became involved in the left-wing 79 Group, an internal SNP faction. Regarded as its principal intellectual driving force, he was the group’s political theorist and stood in the SNP leadership election in 1980.

Although he never expected to win – and was defeated by Gordon Wilson – he saw it as another attempt to shift the terms and conditions of debate in the party to the left.

The 79 Group caused so much unrest in the party that the leading members, including Mr Maxwell and Alex Salmond, were expelled in 1981 but later re-admitted.

His link with the group also thwarted his second attempt to break into journalism in Scotland in the early 1980s when he was rebuffed, he believed, because of the 79 Group association.

He then worked in the voluntary sector, as national organiser of Scottish Education and Action for Development until 1985, followed by 25 years with the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations.

He was its social policy officer, head of policy and programmes, assistant director (development) and latterly associate director for 10 years until his retirement in 2009.

Over his many years there countless organisations benefited, directly or indirectly, from his work and insight. He led the SCVO’s thinking on issues including social exclusion poverty, charity law reform and on aspects of developing a Scottish social economy.

In 2002 he was seconded to the Scottish Executive to develop policy for the promotion of the Scottish social economy. In the early days of devolution, he also worked alongside UK-wide voluntary organisations, helping them adapt to the new landscape.

He had attempted to become an SNP candidate at the first Scottish parliamentary elections but again his principles got in the way. He was ruled out after being unable to bring himself to pledge to consistently toe the party line.

A man of enormous personal credibility and clarity of purpose, he had a wide range of interests: he made at least one trip to the occupied territories of the West Bank, meeting whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu; struck up a friendship with novelist Margaret Atwood and was founding chair of the charitable company Carr-Gomm Scotland Ltd, providing support for 600 vulnerable people living in the community and increasing its income from under £2 million to £15m during his tenure.

He was also a founding member and office-bearer of the Scottish Independence Convention, an initiative to encourage cross-party and non-party co-operation, where he displayed an ability to bring serious analysis to every policy area without trying to avoid the difficult questions.

Yesterday Mr Salmond said: “During Stephen’s long career he made an immense contribution to the national movement in Scotland, and was a key figure in the development of the modern SNP. I will remember his courtesy to all, his extraordinary intellect combined with gentle persuasiveness, and his lifelong service to others. His passing is a great loss to Scotland.”

Stephen Maxwell is survived by his wife, Sally, and children Katie, Luke and Jamie, who aim to ensure his book on independence is published this summer.

A Referendum Road Show – taking the arguments out onto the highways and byways of Scotland

There is a danger that the debate around Scotland’s most contentious political and constitutional issue in living memory will be contained within the sterile environment of television studios and the parliamentary chambers of Westminster and Holyrood.   In response to this legitimate concern, the establishment figures within ‘civil society’ – SCVO, various think tanks, the churches, STUC etc – are trying to extend that debate into a wider national discussion which they have called The Future of Scotland. Whether or not they are successful in stimulating that discussion within their respective memberships, we can be fairly confident that it will not extend to the average man/woman in the street. The general population will be left to make what they can of the respective arguments for and against independence (and everything in between) from whichever media outlets they care to use.

Scottish Community Alliance wishes to coordinate a national road show of ‘events’ designed to explore what all the various options on the table would actually mean for the daily lives of Scotland’s communities and whether they would lead to the realisation (or otherwise) of local plans and aspirations. It would be crucial that this initiative was not perceived in any way to be advocating any particular side of the argument – simply encouraging that debate and exploring what lies behind some of the rhetoric. The road show would operate at a variety of levels but predominantly and ideally it would take place at the most local level possible – the village hall, the miners’ welfares, the mothers and toddler groups at the local community centre. The precise format of how the events would run has still to be established but one proposal is that there should be two tiers of event – one being a series of larger scale events with a focus on a particular theme (housing, health, education etc) and the other being much more local with a focus on specifically local priorities ( a community plan)  so that the invited speakers are required to contextualise their arguments (as opposed to just running through the well-rehearsed and more general arguments)   

Lesley Riddoch, broadcaster and political commentator,  is keen to become involved and has several ideas as to how it could happen. For instance, each event could be recorded with edited extracts posted through YouTube and other social media which would over time become an evolving picture of this national discourse. She has indicated she could recruit a ‘stable’ of well-known media folk that would commit to chairing the events which would add to the profile of the road show programme.  This initiative needs to be resourced. It would require a part time member of staff to coordinate the programme of events for the next two years plus a budget to hold the events and to publicise them. A number of potential funders have been contacted although it remains to be seen whether funders are prepared to support such a venture.

To visit the website for the Code or to sign up as a supporter, click here.

Senscot has created a new code of conduct for social enterprises, claiming previous guidance set the bar too low. The code is designed to be self-regulating, with members deciding whether other members should be signatories.

Each organisation that joins must have two sponsors from the social enterprise community.

Among its guidance, it rules out the payment of profits to shareholders and says that every social enterprise should be set up with a clause that would transfer all its assets to another social enterprise or charity should it be wound up. It also says a social enterprise should be a good employer, with a pay ratio between the highest and lowest paid staff of no more than 5:1.

The code has been launched as an alternative to the Social Enterprise Mark, which is used as an identifier for social enterprises across the UK, but which Senscot feels is not sufficiently rigorous.

Aidan Pia, executive director of Senscot, said organisations in Scotland felt that when the Social Enterprise Mark was introduced in the UK as a means of identifying social enterprises “the bar had been set too low. The mark allows anything up to half of profits to be paid out to shareholders and owners in the form of dividends.”

Senscot had initially supported the mark during its trial period, when only 35 per cent of profits could be distributed, but withdrew when this was increased.

Aidan Pia said: “In England, in particular, there has been a lobby to keep definitions blurred, with the result that essentially private enterprises are masquerading as social enterprises and devaluing our brand. In response to this, the Scottish social enterprise community has set down the values and behaviours by which we recognise each other.”

Lucy Findlay, managing director of the Social Enterprise Mark Company, said her organisation welcomed the code and that it was broadly in line with the mark’s criteria.

“Any social enterprises that adhere to the new code would automatically qualify for the mark,” she said.

Peter Braniff, who manages Social Employers in Ayrshire (SEA), a social enterprise placing people with learning disabilities in paid employment, said the code would strengthen the sector.

“There is too much interpretation of how a social enterprise should operate and this brings it in line,” he said. “Some get too business like, putting profits before motive and that’s just wrong. Hopefully it will be as successful as the Fundraising Standards Board’s voluntary code which has been a proven success. Self-governing codes are always the most successful as it’s basically a democratic consensus instead of prescription.”

The move comes a few weeks after First Minister Alex Salmond pledged Scotland would become an international hub for social enterprise, announcing a new scheme to support global social business.

Salmond said he wanted to “continue to provide the most supportive environment in the world for social enterprise”.

To view a short video explaining the concept click here.

The Wisdom Council is an approach for facilitating whole-system change in very large systems — like corporations, cities, unions, professional associations and government agencies. With little cost or time, it promises to establish a system-wide “choice-creating” conversation, where everyone thinks together on the most difficult issues. The process:

• Builds trust and community

• Creates new options, and develops near-unanimous shared visions 

• Sparks a participative management style … and a Circle Organization

• Brings people together with one voice

What does a Wisdom Council look like?

Every four months or so, eight to twelve members of the organization, city or large system are randomly selected to meet for a short period, like two days. This group meets with a “dynamic facilitator” to identify key issues, work on them creatively, and develop a unanimous message. This message has symbolic authority as a voice of everyone, which is presented back to the whole system. The entire system is invited to hear the message, visit about it with others in small groups, and report back their level of support. In practice, we’ve found that most everyone supports both the message generated by the Wisdom Council and the process. 

The point of the Wisdom Council process is to generate a creative, system-wide conversation that reaches specific conclusions, the will to implement them, and builds the spirit of community. The goal is to have everyone talking in a thoughtful, creative, heartfelt way about the big issues and to for near consensus views to emerge. 

In the next three months, a new Council is randomly selected. Each subsequent Wisdom Council is free to choose its own issues, but each cycle tends to build upon what was done previously. Each new Wisdom Council may follow up on previous conclusions, monitor actions, or modify the previous message. Over time the whole system evolves positions that most all support. Action happens voluntarily by individuals or through the normal channels, which might include standing committees, management, or elected officials.

The Wisdom Council has no formal authority, yet the integrity of the process gives it great symbolic weight. It’s a way to utilize diverse perspectives to raise the level of collective intelligence and action that all support.

What makes the Wisdom Council unique?

At first glance the Wisdom Council process seems similar to other forms of democratic councils where randomly selected groups work together on issues and make pronouncements. But these deliberative polls, citizen advisory groups, Citizens Juries, Citizen Assemblies, or citizen deliberative panels use a carefully selected group of people or a stratified sampling, rather than a pure random selection. They work on a pre-selected issue rather than the participants choosing the issue themselves. The process of thinking is “deliberation” where people carefully weigh specific options, rather than “choice-creating,” where people seek creative answers that work for all. They result in a negotiated agreement or a vote, seeking action from the authorities, rather than a unanimous perspective that sparks a conversation among the whole population. And, they are one-time events rather than ongoing. 

The Wisdom Council process empowers each person in the system to become involved and take responsibility for the actions of all.

Where are Wisdom Councils being used?

Wisdom Councils have been facilitated in numerous communities and organizations. From cooperatively-run businesses to large government agencies to cities and states, Wisdom Councils are offering new hope for the future of democracy and self-governance at many levels.

Note Assist Social Capital are working in partnership with Manfred Hellrigl from Austria to bring dynamic facilitation training and Wisdom Councils to Scotland at the end of this year.