I’ve been working with the SENTA (Sheffield Enterprise Agency) team for a while now and I am really enjoying working with them. For those of you who aren’t aware of what SENTA is or what it does, they essentially try and support and encourage people to start new businesses across Sheffield and the support they are offer comes in many forms including mentoring, training courses and free workshops.
If you are thinking of starting your own business, then giving SENTA a call might be a great place to start.
You might also be familiar with the Big! Make It Your Business Programme. This is part of the SENTA umbrella offering – specifically targeting at nurturing new talent and new business growth in the city.
Latterly the Big! programme has been rebranded to ’Solutions For Business’ so after a quick change to the workshop material, we were ready to go with today’s workshop. The difference between one of my seminars and a workshop is that we limit the workshop attendees to 5-6 and try and give each delegate their own laptop to work on. We mix theory and practice and it tends to really help when we have real life websites to look at.
We run the workshops over at the Quadrant Business Centre which is handily located off the Sheffield Parkway and we also provide free parking, lunch and refreshments for everyone who comes along.
Arriving at the venue this morning I had a bizarre moment seeing our room had literally dozens of bikes in it. I was (hastily!) advised by Jayne the centre manager that it would be fine and they were in fact all part of a new initiative being launched by the council.
Apparently you agree to peddle to work for three weeks and then have the option to buy the same bike for 1/2 its usual price. My first thought was ‘great, put in the shed for three weeks and get a cheap bike!’ but i’m guessing there is more to it than that. Personally, I’m not into bikes too much. My last bike was a Raleigh racer which is now nearly as old as me and currently sitting in my parents loft somewhere.
The last time I rode a bike was on holiday last year in Lake Garda (which was loads of fun as Megan was sat on the back of the bike with me) and it did cross my mind to give this a go. So what’s stopping me you may ask? simple – Sheffield………. its one very very big hill! Sorry.
Anyway thanks to everyone I met today and see you next week for the adwords workshop if you are coming along.
Enjoy your weekend everyone!
Tags: business, colegate, for, free, jon, SENTA, SEO, sheffield, solutions, Training, workshop, workshops, yorkshire