Meeting with the MP Hon. Sally Keeble

Venue: St Giles House, 76 St Giles Street, Northampton 

Meeting with the MP Hon. Sally Keeble on 19th June 2009 at Barratt House, Kingsthorpe Offices, Northampton.

Present:
John Brownell, Andrew Gondwe, Tawanda Taderera, Rutendo Nyatsime, Anna Filonowicz and Hon. Sally Keeble MP

Issues discussed

1. This meeting was arranged in response to the letter NCISE Northamptonshire wrote to the Hon. Member of Parliament on 12th May 2009 advising her of the existence of NCISE in Northamptonshire.
2. During the meeting Hon. MP was advised of the objectives of NCISE Northamptonshire and a brief background to its establishment by the Project Manager of NCISE Northamptonshire, John Nimly Brownell.  The support towards the establishment of NCISE has been provided by the Novas Scarman Group.
3. While the concept of social enterprise is not new in Northamptonshire, NCISE focuses on new communities in Northamptonshire to enable these new groups to be self sustaining.  Further, she was informed of the successful bid from European Social Fund (ESF) to facilitate the training of 40 people from the new communities within the period of one year on social enterprise. Upon completion of the training successful participants will be awarded certificates accredited by the Open College Network (OCN)
4. Hon. Sally Keeble was impressed to learn that NCISE came up with this initiative during this recession period and any innovative ideas by new communities to sustain themselves and integrate within the communities was a positive move.  She was further encouraged to learn that we had some funding from ESF taking into account the conditions associated to such funding and she expressed her interest to attend one of the training sessions.  She further pledged to support NCISE to ensure that it delivers its services to new communities to enable them attain sustainability and overcome the challenges ahead.
5. She requested to be kept posted of any developments in the course of our pursuit and programmes.