Very big week next week for myself personally and my social enterprise Dyslexia Pathways CIC

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi blog readers hope you are all well out there across the globe

 

SCALE UP PROGRAMME:

 

Some of you may remember I have been lucky enough to be select for the Inaugural Scotland Can Do Scale programme. I am on the Scale programme which is about scaling up what your organisation does.  

 

Scotland Highlands & Islands Enterprise (“HIE”), Scottish Enterprise (“SE”) and the Scottish Funding Council (“SFC”) (the Partners) are jointly meeting the costs participating in the Scotland CAN DO SCALE programme.

 

The SCALE programme will be held at Stirling

 

 

Management Centre on 04-07 August 2015 and we

 

will be staying at the Stirling Court Hotel over the

 

duration of the course..

 

 

Its a very full agenda of around 5 long days. We have

 

to be there on the evening of the 3rd August for

 

initial meetings and dinner until 9pm. The Tuesday,

 

Wednesday and Thursday and finish around 5pm

 

Friday. It is my aim to write a couple of blogs and

 

post some photos from this event

 

Agenda includes:

 

 

Challenges of moving from an SME to an IDE, raising

 

money: finance for scale, product plans for greatness

 

and how academia connects to and offers

 

opportunities for Scottish business and loads more.

 

This is an opportunity if a life time for any business

 

owner or entrepreneur. I am so chuffed to have this

 

opportunity and have the opportunity to meet such

 

an cornucopia of  speakers, Facilitators observers and

 

guests.

 

CAN DO SCALE Programme Team

Stephanie Anderson, Highlands and Islands Enterprise
Donna Chisholm, Highlands and Islands Enterprise
Stuart Fancey, Scottish Funding Council
Paul Hagan, Scottish Funding Council
John MacLennan, Scottish Enterprise
Eleanor Mitchell, Scottish Enterprise
Geoff Morris, Scotland CAN DO SCALE
Lisa Thomson, Scotland CAN DO SCALE

Speakers
 
Bill Aulet, MIT Sloan School of Management
Nicola Broughton, Mercia Fund Management Limited
Mark Fahy, London Stock Exchange ELITE Programme
Deborah Frances-White, The Spontaneity Shop
Jonathan Harris, Young Company Finance
Simon Harris, University of Edinburgh
Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, Mary’s Meals
Gerry McCormac, University of Stirling
Kepa Mendibil, University of Stirling
John Peebles, Administrate
Eleanor Shaw, University of Strathclyde
Iain Swanston, klozers
Noam Wasserman, Harvard Business School
Charlotte Wright, Highlands and Islands Enterprise

Facilitators:
 
Nigel Chadwick, Stream Technologies
Paula Douglas, Scottish Enterprise
Meredith Glasse-Davies, Henceforward
Rachel Jones, Totseat / Snapdragon IP
Geoff Kell, Pufferfish Displays
Ryder Meggitt, Futurefast
Tamlin Roberts, Mercurytide

Observers and Guests:

John Anderson, Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship
Ute Beck, Scottish Enterprise
Andy Campbell, Elevator
Jamie Coleman, Codebase
Dominic Chalmers, Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship
Ann Davidson, Scottish Institute for Enterprise
Mairi Dillon, Entrepreneurial Scotland
Craig Early, Scottish Enterprise
Steve Ewing, Informatics Ventures
Margaret Gibson, Womens Enterprise Scotland
Adrian Gillespie, Scottish Enterprise
Danny Helson, Informatics Ventures
Claire Johnstone, Entrepreneurial Scotland
Jonathan Levie, Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship
Andrea McColl, Highlands and Islands Enterprise
Andrew McGee, Alba Innovation Centre
Tom McGuire, Scottish Institute for Enterprise
Anna Miller, Highlands and Islands Enterprise / Pathfinder Accelerator
Phin Mpofu, Start Up Grind
Alex Paterson, Highlands and Islands Enterprise
Ian Ritchie, Entrepreneurial Scotland
Gordon Stuart, Informatics Ventures
Dawn Shand, Scottish Institute for Enterprise
Leanne Sherry, Entrepreneurial Scotland

Dyslexia Pathways CIC Scottish Innovation Certificate news

Here is a little biography of the person I am working with on this new Dyslexia Pathways CIC project:

Alex is a Lecturer in Software Engineering in the School of Computer
Science at the University of St Andrews and a member of the St Andrews Institute for Data-Intensive Research. His research interests focus on participatory design and the study of the adoption of technologies.

Anyway that's enough for today except to say ta for reading my blog

 

 

Progress, progress and more progress but one big fly in the ointment

 

Hi blog readers hope you are all well.

 

Lots of exciting things going on for me and Dyslexia Pathways CIC.

 

Can Do Scale Programme:

 

I think the biggest news is that I was selected for the inaugural Scotland Can do Scale Programme. I am still a bit shell shocked because it was very competitive. Over 300 companies applied and I managed to secure one of the 35 places on the Scale programme.

 

Here is a link to their website:

 

http://www.cando.scot/scale/

 

"Scotland CAN DO SCALE aims to develop the skills of entrepreneurs with an internationally relevant, innovation-driven idea with the potential to grow significantly in Scotland.

The inaugural SCALE 2015 programme will offer unprecedented global teaching led by internationally renowned influencers with direct expertise in substantial company growth. It will take place over four days in Stirling, and is designed for both start up entrepreneurs and those who want to ‘scale up’ their business.

The Programme will equip you with a proven, systematic and rigorous approach to grow your business that can be reused to foster new markets and products throughout its lifetime.

You’ll learn skills to ‘scale up’ to an innovation-driven enterprise (IDE), developing a business that leads the competition and can create significant growth with new products or services that excite customers, and can be delivered efficiently.

By focusing on innovation as a key driver of growth, you can compete in new ways, using new business models to respond rapidly to evolving trends in a highly connected marketplace".

Many thanks to Kallum at Acorn Enterprises for sending all Acorns and Saplings from the Acorn Business Incubator for making us aware of the programme. I completed the Scale application with no expectation of gaining a place. To be honest I was chuffed to just get short listed.

I think this just says if you see any opportunity just go for it.  Probably the biggest thing I got from the Acorn Business incubator.

Directors meeting:

On Sunday we had a meeting of the Dyslexia Pathways CIC board of directors which we held at the Old Manor Hotel at Lundin Links in Fife. The only item of the agenda was progressed made tee shirt dyslexia positive logo designs. Have to say I was impressed by the progress made by Cat.

From left to right Lecia, Carolynn, Cat, my wife Anne and Lesley. They are a great team and Dyslexia Pathways CIC would not be here after 6 years without them.

Scottish Innovation Voucher:

I had a meeting with Alex from St Andrews University today regarding my dyslexia phone app idea. Alex has a PhD in Software Engineering and we had a brilliant meeting. I am meeting with him again tomorrow to plan out the idea and write our application for a Scottish Innovation Voucher. This will enable us to build a proto type and do some research on the idea.

Enterprise Scotland:

I also had a meeting with June Gallagher from Enterprise Scotland seeking advice and support. This was again a fruitful meeting.

Holiday:

My wife and I went away to Ribby Hall Village for a weeks holiday with the family. Brilliant place especially for kids.

 

Just a couple pics of Layla who had a great time 

 



Fly in the ointment:

The only real fly in the ointment is cash flow for me at the moment. What with my heart attack, attending the 20 week incubator course etc I lost around 4 months business income. So I an struggling to pay my bills, I am going to have to close down my Unique Dyslexic app and go back to a free version on the Unique Dyslexic soundcloud page. I have been thinking of crowd funding myself but there are just not enough hours in the day to do this sigh.

I am in the process of making a funding bid to Foundation Scotland. I just need to find someone independent of Dyslexia Pathways CIC to look at our accounts and sign them off. Its just a small bid of £1.800 to buy materials to promote and run some dyslexia awareness training and to do some dyslexia assessments.

Anyway enough of the negative.

ta for taking the time to read my blog

Loads of good stuff going on here at Dyslexia Pathways CIC and Unique Dyslexic

Hi blog readers hope you are all well out there in blog land hope you are all well. Its just about 7 am here in Glenrothes in Scotland. The above photo is of a piece of fused glass art created by a participant at our Unique Dyslexic Fused glass art work shop. The reason its there will become clear later.

I received an e mail from the Fresh Light business consultancy. That have agree to work with us over an 8 week period on our dyslexia hub campaign. Fresh Sight are a Edinburgh student lead business consultancy who support the work of charities and social enterprises here in Scotland. We have to find £250 to pay for this but we have plenty of time because it will not start until September this year.

I received a request for some help with a court case a couple weeks ago. The guy explained he was dyslexic and was struggling with unreadable documents using unfathomable legal jargon. I know that justice and courts and all legal proceedings can be very dyslexia unfriendly so was happy to provide him with some free support. I was just a letter explaining that he was dyslexic, that he had an official dyslexia assessment and some advice on ways the court could be more dyslexia friendly. Of course I had to explain the courts had a duty under legislation to be more dyslexia friendly. Lets see how this goes now for him.    

I was sent this Linked in recommendation the other day: 

"I had the pleasure of attending a business accelerator course with Stephen he is a great guy with a great personality as soon as you speak to him you feel at ease in his company.he is very passionate about what he does and he does it well. His attitude as to how people who have dyslexia is refreshing he does not see them as having a disability but having a different and sometimes better way of looking at things. Steve is a fountain of knowledge when it comes to dyslexia he not only talks the talk but being dyslexic himself he walks the walk and understands what people with dyslexia have to go through."

Always chuffed to get positive feedback. Many thanks to Duncan, who is dyslexic himself, for this it is much appreciated. He himself is one of the many dyslexic entrepreneurs and the founder of Zulu Warrior Street Defence. At Zulu Warrior street Defence our main objective is Personal Safety to this end we provide bespoke training to those who are vulnerable at home, at work or just daily life in general.

Had a weird experience on Sunday...I was sitting at home watching the British Grand Prix when I say a guy walking past our front garden fence. He opened the gate and walked down to our front door. I waited for him to ring on the door bell. Looking at the door I saw the door hands slowly moving downwards, strange I though I didn't know the guy. Then the front door slowly began to open. That was me up off the couch at rocket speed towards the front door. I quickly opened the door looked at the guy and in no uncertain terms yelled at him to hmmmmm well lets just say I swore at him, using an unprintable colourful metaphor, which made it clear I wanted him to go. The guy just looked at me bold as brass turned around and slowly walked back up the garden path. Of course I called the police but so far I have heard nothing.  

My niece a member of the Tullis Russell brass band. On Saturday 4th July 2015  the youth band organised a Ceilidh (pronounced kaylee) to raise funds for the youth band. A Ceilidh is like a big party / shindig lots of music, dancing and people getting together having fun. Have to report the kids did great they organised a great evening. Below is some film footage and photos from the night. They managed to raise over £1000 from the night which is brilliant.

 

Layla and me dancing lol eeep

Now all these dances have names but I do not know them lol 

 

 

 

 

Layla being cheeky lol

 My wife won this great cake and she shared it around every one at the event

 

 

Below wee Georgia and big Georgia performing a little Scottish country dancing.

 

 

 

 



 

Anyway many thanks for reading my blog

 

take care and peace love and groovyness to all