 Inspire is a project that's all about initiating new pathways for innovators, researchers and entrepreneurs. It's a project that's been part funded by the European Regional Development Fund in the Island Wales cross-border programme. Hi, my name is Peter, Peter Lord. I'm the project manager for the Welsh side of the Inspire project. I feel like the Inspire project has achieved quite a journey for some people. We've taken them from the beginning of an idea to the pre-start of a business, so we've got a gem of idea that's actually grown. We've opened people's imagination, we've opened people's mindsets to the way business can be done, and I think we've got some cracking businesses that are going to be on the horizon very soon. It's been very good to see the level of cross-border participation between the Irish and the Welsh teams. Most importantly, to see a lot of younger people released into starting their own businesses. But not only that, you can also see the great potential for enhancing the performance of SMEs. I've done the first phase of field work. Feedback has been very positive actually about the Inspire project. People generally feel the mentoring has been particularly strong. Really enjoyed that and enjoyed the network sessions, getting out and talking to other people. That's really been strong as well. All that is inspirational in speaking and it kind of gets you to think about business in a more global way. I believe the interest of how to grow people and how to grow companies started the discussion to get here. I'm here and hope to inspire you. The aims and objectives of the project were to really just inspire the communities and the businesses to actually develop the outdoor sector, to really grow the sector. We've got some amazing scenery, some amazing offer here in Wales and really trying to find partners, looking at different partners in parts of Ireland and trying to identify the funding that could help to do that. Prif nod y project yn gwynedd oes ymateb i ffynoriaeth cynnw'r gwynedd o'r fflwch gweithio'r awyr a goret. Da ni gyd i gwybod bod gyn gwynedd adnodra naturio i thredol o'r hynod oedd yr yrwri i arfordi'r bai ceredigion a penllun. Felly o'r gwynedd o'r gwynedd yn gweld ond yn gyfle arall i fydd sodi yn yr adnoddama a datblygu y sectorau yw'r agoredd yn yllaf. Mae'n adbetaeth brif am Cynedd y project a mae hynna i gweithio efo gymyned, pasio'r cynnig a weith agoredd ymlaen at y nôch. Felly, chi dweithio hefo busnesau heol ac cynnig gwybod ddaeth tros ffynio'u nhw'n hwn. Yn hefyd, mae'na elfen o fachnata ddangos pa mae hawdd wedi cael gwyliad yn gwynedd yn cymru a'r gwerthon. Ac yn ola, a sydd i cynnyddu sgiliau nhw'n gwyliad nhw'n hefyd cael mynd i gweithio yn y sector awyr goredd. The main aims of the project was to foster and develop business in the local community, which we have done with the businesses and to engage with the community in the outdoor sector also. Developing the business, working very close with the business and getting familiar with the businesses. I think with the Welsh partners we've certainly learned from them, and we've developed relationships that we probably would have never had before. We also have learned stuff from them that we could already do here in Caldera, and we have tried it and it worked, which I think we needed that push because we wouldn't have tried it otherwise. Our local canoeing club would have had very few people in it, but when we started off now they have 65 members, and most of them are people that have never been in the water before, so I think that that's total success. I think the project has been very, very successful and I think that the feedback already to date is absolutely fantastic. We faced a number of challenges before we took part in the programme. The construction market had shrunk and with that our client base. The programme made us look at other markets from the start. We were surprised with a number of things. Number one, I suppose, was the actual opportunities that are out there. When you actually get into a programme like this and you start to follow the progressive paths that this programme lays out, you begin to see very practical, tangible results and I think that's what keeps this programme fresh. The guys in the company really found it very beneficial from their point of view and could see that this was a company that was really moving and that they wanted to be part of it now as opposed to just batting down the hatches for the recession that's out there. One of the tools we did was the customer journey and that was instructive in itself. I didn't realise it would be so important for clients to know exactly when they're going to receive stuff, to give them tracking numbers so that they can actually keep on top of it. It really increases the positive experience of the customer and that's something that definitely came out of this. I wouldn't have thought of it otherwise. I think the mentoring was critical. Sean brought a new perspective to our business. Having not worked with us before, he really was able to look at things with a fresh pair of eyes and brought a lot of skill sets to bear on the elements of the programme and how we could apply those within our own organisation. It's a fantastic opportunity with a programme like this to meet businesses in a similar space, in a similar position because all businesses have the same challenges, face the same issues. You see how other companies deal with these challenges and issues. The roadmap was absolutely fantastic to sit down and actually write down where you are and where you want to be and also then to get feedback on your business. It's great to have an objective professional person guiding you through this whole process and it's just invaluable really. We've finally got a good direction. We've got good guidance and we're now in the position where we're able to plot forward. We know where we're going now and we know how we're going to get there. My subject today, the masterclass was about leading a growing social enterprise and really it's quite a wide theme. It was about what are the sort of factors that are involved and things to think about when growing a social enterprise from a small start-up into a bigger organisation. If you find the right people and you put them in the job that's suitable for them they will do a great job for you and then don't micromanage them. There is money out there, you've got to be focused and be able to meet the need for that money but there's got to be a market for what you're doing. A few of the key messages I delivered today were around leadership, making sure that you act as a leader and that's really important rather than being a manager that you become a leader and you really get out front and take the organisation with you. Hopefully the delegate's got lots of interesting ideas a bit of challenge and some tough questions to answer and what I tried to do at the end of the presentation was to get them to take all of that back and write down a bit of an action plan. One of the top three things that you're going to do when you go home from here so it's not just a nice morning out and a bit of a discussion, you actually take some action and make some change for the positive in your organisation. I'm quite new to this kind of concept but Matt was really nice, really informative obviously very talented and it was a good case study. If you've never attended a masterclass I would say get yourself down there there's the brilliant discussion. Already today we had two people doing business together lots of networking, lots of interesting things people finding mentals, all sorts of stuff going on and then also that's outside of the presentation so hopefully those people have also taken away some good ideas loads of good things happening in just three hours in the morning. It's been really worthwhile so I'm glad they came. My name is Adele Maloney and I did a masters in social enterprise with the Rhine Academy in DCU. I'm from Dublin, I've lived in Dublin all my life bar 12 years when I lived in the UK and I came back from the UK in 1999 and I came back and did a masters here in DCU so this is actually my second time in DCU I was working all the time previously in the financial sector and then I got a fantastic opportunity to come and work in Speedpack and Speedpack is a social enterprise in the north side of Dublin it works with long term unemployed people it employs them and provides training I was delighted to get the opportunity to do a masters, a business masters I thought that was very exciting it was all the subjects I would normally avoid business and accounting and that but it was a huge opportunity for me the distance learning was great particularly in the managing your time so there wasn't a time that you had to be somewhere you're not confined to it has to be Tuesday at half eight because if it Tuesday at half eight it doesn't suit you for any reason you can watch back the recording a huge amount of the learning for me was looking at what other people are doing and finding out about their organisations the learning for me was enormous in that to see the kind of social enterprises that are out there the kind of work the people are doing in the community is quite phenomenal our role is to take this knowledge take this information, take the research that's there and implement it in a way that has a value I absolutely would recommend studying with DCU around academy