Welcome to this first update on the work carried out for the Building Better Opportunities Lottery funded partnership. You are receiving this email because you completed the South East Midlands Local Enterprise Partnership (SEMLEP) VCSE Survey, or attended one of the four information sessions, or the “Meet the Leads” seminar at Towcester Racecourse.

The BBO partnership has proved very successful in advertising and engaging the VCSE in SEMLEP in opportunities to bid for the three BBO and European Social Fund (ESF) Co-Financed project strands, but the funding for this promotional work has now finished. However the four partners involved recognise the added value it has brought to the sector and are committed to continued partnership delivery and dissemination of information. We believe that there will be other opportunities for joint working that will benefit the sector and build capacity. To this end we are committed to producing 3 newsletters (August 2015, January and March 2016)  to keep you updated on the Lottery/ESF bids and other potential sources of funding and information to support the VCSE.

We are running two funding rounds for BBO covering the first three years of the ESIF 2014 – 20 programme. Each round has a number of funding opportunities across England, each with a two stage application process.
Our first round launched on 5th June and the stage one application deadline was on 3rd August. We are now assessing these applications and aim to have decisions by November 2015, when successful applicants will be invited to stage two. The stage two application process has three deadlines for final applications to be submitted. Each applicant will work with their funding officer to decide how much time they need to develop their stage two application and which deadline to work towards. The first of these deadlines is planned for January 2016 and decisions on whether to fund these applications will be made in March 2016. Further application deadlines are planned for March and May, and the corresponding funding decisions for these applications will be made in May and July 2016 respectively.

BMG Research have been commissioned by SEMLEP to carry out a survey with over 1,700 organisations across the area. This will cover a wide range of business related issues including skills shortages, barriers to business growth and what more could SEMLEP do to support businesses to grow. To ensure all organisations across the South East Midlands have the opportunity to have their say SEMLEP has designed an online version which will be open until September 1st 2015. The Survey is open to all organisations which are Company House and/or PAYE registered within the private, voluntary, community or social enterprise sectors.

Take part in the Business Survey HERE: www.semlep2015businesssurvey.co.uk

Helen Cracknell – Community Impact Bucks 

Helen.Cracknell@communityimpactbucks.org.uk

David Ward – Voluntary Impact Northamptonshire

David.Ward@voluntaryimpact.org.uk

Vanda Bailey – The Learning Partnership (Bedfordshire and Luton)

vbailey@learning-partnership.co.uk

Sue Quinn – MK Community Enterprise  

sue@mkce.co.uk