17/01/2008

Following the success of the celebration event in November, the feedback was a resounding ‘Yes’ for a regular, networking club at SWEDA. It was decided to kick it off as soon as possible with a Christmas Pamaper Day and Fair, giving women the opportunity to meet each other, talk about their business, buy any last minute Christmas gifts, as well as take advantage of the free beauty treatments available. Drumming workshops were led by Beth Haining of ‘Talking Drums’ - a social enterprise working with groups and individuals to use African drumming as a means of expression. Over 30 people came along on the day – we hope this will be just the beginning of a strong, co-operative business club at SWEDA. All are welcome, please call 0121 525 2558 or check the website to find out about the next event in January 2008!

17/01/2008

As part of SWEDA’s Enterprise Week programme, women from all over the Black Country came to SWEDA to network, share ideas and celebrate their achivements in enterprise in 2007.

The event began with a welcome from Davinder Kaur, Manager of SWEDA, followed by short presentations from women in business themselves.

Satwinder Sohal and Linda Middleton of Community Youth Project, who provide training programmes to young people and organisations on a variety of topics, gave some of their ‘top tips’ for keeping the customer happy.

This was followed by a very practical presentation from Birgit Kehrer of Bsustained -  a training, research and creative consultancy – on skills for networking. “..Always carry your business card, even in the sauna at the gym.!”

The main activity of the day was an interactive activity led by Marilyn Burrill – a consultant working in organisational and social enterprise development. The purpose of the activity was to encourage women in business or thinking about starting their own business to be aware of and respond to trends in the envrionment around them. Each group came up with some business ideas in response to a published statistic. Ideas ranged from the serious to the bizarre - watch this space to see if anyone decides to take any of the ideas any further!

17/01/2008

SWEDA achieves the PROWESS Flagship quality standard!  

(July 2007)

The Prowess Flagship Award is a best practice quality standard for excellence in women’s enterprise development; recognised both nationally and internationally. Endorsed by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) and several of the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), it shows SWEDA’s ongoing commitment to developing high quality services for women, encouraging more women into enterprise and the provision of a quality, ‘expert’ service to our funders.