CONFERENCE UPDATE AND ENTERPRISE WEEK

What a conference! As one of our attendees so eloquently put it ‘I was ready to karate kick the door down’ after the WEConnect Conference on the 31st October!

In all seriousness, I have been attending conferences in different capacities for many years now and can honestly say it was one of the most inspiring and motivating events I have ever attended.

The important issue for me now as the incoming Executive Director for WEConnect is that events such as this continue to deliver real value to you, our members, both corporates and woman business owners.

For those that did manage to attend, there is still an opportunity to formally feedback your views on the conference through our online evaluation questionnaire at:

Survey Monkey.com (link is external)
This will close on 30 November 08.

I would be particularly keen to hear your views on how we can improve the day and make WEConnect Annual Conference 2009 even better!

Once we have collated all your views we will be producing a full conference report which will be posted on the website.

This week is Enterprise Week (17 – 21 November) and many of you will be involved in events during the week particularly on Wednesday 19 November, Women’s Enterprise day. The Government will be announcing the launch of the Aspire Fund, a fund which is specifically designed to support women business owners.

Government proposes to use this fund as a beacon to encourage female entrepreneurs to seek appropriate risk capital finance and to demonstrate that attractive and viable investment opportunities exist. The Aspire Fund is part of the delivery of the Government’s Enterprise Strategy and £12.5 m public funding is being committed alongside substantial private investment.

We are pleased to be able to provide you with details of this opportunity which you will find at The Aspire Fund (link is external) on the News section of this website. This could be the pump prime funding which ensures our women owned businesses have the capacity and capability to make the most of procurement opportunities. Good luck if you decide to apply!

Finally, we will be producing the latest WEConnect e zine shortly so would be very interested to hear if any of our members have developed procurement opportunities as a direct result of networking at the WEConnect Conference. Please send in any examples you may have to Kati Wakefield at k.wakefield@weconnect.org.uk .

Caroline Roberts
Executive Director
WEConnect