Wed 24 Feb 2010

Tuesday and today have been spent still working on all the profile pages fo the website.
I'm getting a little bored with the work, much prefer going out to the locations and meeting the people-seeing the faces,but this has to get done i guess! Tomorrow, however, i'll be going with Hanolet to either Ratanda or Sharpeville to hand out the acceptance letters to the guys and girls for the Vuka mentorship course. That should be way more interesting than sitting here going through the motions, cutting, pasting, editing, bleh. As soon as all the Profile pages are completed and launched, I'll Blog it and you can check them out!
Thats all for today, back to the profiles...

22 Feb 2010

I don't have much to report on for today, my Friday was spent editing and uploading new profiles for the Ratanda and Sharpeville intakes, Today is pretty much the same.
The final names and profiles of the selected entrepreneurs from these areas have to be added to our website ( www.Neosho119.com ) each intake gets their own personal page that we can edit and modify as their training and businesses progress, you can follow the growth of an individual business as it's uploaded! It's a slow job of 'copy and paste' but the new Ratanda profiles should be completed by tuesday evening. The first programme starts in the first week of March, it will be interesting to see how the guys we have selected will do! All the details of the training and everything that happens after will be documented right here! Keep viewing the blog as things start to take off in the following months...

Thursday 18 Feb 2010-02-18

Today myself, Hanolet and Mondli all headed out to Sharpeville to interview the last guys there for the March intake, yesterday I said that we had 30+ people to speak to, I was wrong.

We interviewed 50 potential entrepreneurs from the Sharpeville area. Phew. Everyone from hairdressers to shoe makers, the interviewing itself is a slow process as we have to get as much personal and business information as possible while keeping it short and sweet and also answering any and all questions that they may have. Never the less, it took us the best part of six hours to finally complete the process,

it’s now just a matter of combing through the interviews and selecting the ‘best of the best’ for the mentorship programme. We where all pretty pleased with the amount of people who turned up and even happier once we had finished! It is an exhausting activity! But personally I think today provided us with some of the most promising business people to date!

Wednesday 17 February 2010

Today I got to leave Edenvale and travel out to Ratanda with Hanolet,

I haven’t been in Ratanda for a couple weeks now and was excited to see how things have been shaping up. Myself and Hanolet were meeting up with Mondli Guma, the funds manager for our specific project from Anglo American.

Mondli has been accompanying us to the various locations and helping with the interviewing of entrepreneurs hoping to qualify for the Mentorship programme. Today we continued with the intakes from Ratanda, we needed only thirteen more entrepreneurs to meet our first intake requirements, after speaking to around 24 people (22 of which qualify) we where over the required number!

This is a great thing as we can set these people up for our second intakes!!

A lot of the questions that came up where related to times and dates of the programmes and a few had no real idea what it is that we do! After clarifying our role in their business life it was plain to see that majority of the men and women we spoke to where excited and eager to start! We spoke to a number of promising business people, from bakers to panelbeaters! Tomorrow will find us in Sharpeville where we will be interviewing 30 more potential entrepreneurs, hopefully the results will be as good as today’s were.

Tuesday 16 Feb 2010

Last week finally ended, and on a good note, the dates for the Mentorship programme classes where set! Sharpeville will start on the 5-6 March, Ratanda on the 12-13 March, while Springs’ sessions will begin on the 29-30 of April, the Sebukeng area on the 7-8 of May! Boipatong and Evaton are still awaiting finalisation. The Witbank area will start sometime in August, these are the areas we are covering for 2010, once these have successfully completed their Mentorship courses we can move our programmes further out across South Africa!

Monday 15 February found us in Springs once again. Unfortunately (much to our disappointment) the electricity has still not been turned on, so our entrepreneurs cannot use any of their equipment… quite a setback. Sharon held a meeting with the guys and girls of the Lepharo project, explaining to them the basics of business, revising and perfecting their business plans. One activity was for each member to write down in one minute what they thought their strengths where, the same for the strengths of the businesses they each run, this helped them acknowledge the positive aspects of themselves and their companies.

Louis Munnick has been asked to come on board to assist in the managing of the Lepharo project, here’s what he thinks about the project and his role therein.

“What excites me about the project is that it is an incubator process - trained start-up entrepreneurs operate out of a development industrial hub, thereby they have easy access to business focused people that can assist their respective business with a wide range of different expertise. This support will assist them to grow and develop their business acumen a lot quicker than if they operated on their own outside the Hub.

Passion - environmental issues (save the planet) - whilst at De Beers I served as the Chairman of the Diamond Route - an Oppenheimer De Beers initiative that focuses on Bio-diversity aspects - I loved the project. I also enjoy sport eg swimming, athletics and rugby. In years gone by, I ran marathons and ultra-marathons - Comrades, Two Oceans etc - Now I swim - completed two open water events during the past two weeks and hopefully complete the Midmar Mile twice this weekend.” (Louis went on to successfully complete the Mile twice, with an improved time on the second day)

“My hope is that by the time the entrepreneurs leave the incubator hub, they are competent, enjoy high levels of business acumen, their businesses are profitable & sustainable and they employ dozens of people...

One of my concerns is that the entrepreneurs are unable to compete in the outside world and require continuous handholding subsequent to their term at the Hub. “

7 Feb '10

Hey everyone, welcome to monday! Today was a good day,we got out to Springs and i managed to get a few more profiles done for the Lepharo Project. The guys and gals there seem pretty desperate for some guidance and management in their chosen fields.. Which is where we come in, by the time we are finished with them they will have realised it was always up to them to get where they wanna be!Just a few pointers in the right directions..
I also heard back from Mr Jan Hollenbach today, regarding the interview held in January, here it is..

On the 25^th January, I accompanied Sharon Reed to Maccauvlei Learning Academy. Sharon met with Jan Hollenbach, Managing Director of Maccauvlei to discuss the Vuka Mentorship Programme. The training sessions for this programme will take place at Maccauvlei and I was very impressed with the training facilities. Maccauvlei is situated on a golf estate and has a fully-fledged conference facility.

Jan Hollenbach had the following to say on Maccauvlei’s involvement in the up-coming project, “being able to be a part of a potential contribution to the greater South Africa is, as I see it, a life changing opportunity. We are in this for the long run and the bigger picture. Maccauvlei is more than happy to assist with the facilitating and running of the courses, what makes this project so different is that it’s a commitment from the heart, people’s willingness to make a real difference!”

Jan quoted a Chinese proverb to illustrate the importance of the mentorship programme “if you give a man a fish to eat today, you will have to feed him again tomorrow, but teach that man to fish for himself- and you will have fed him forever”.

“Because of the work we are doing, it is very important that our hearts as well as our minds and hands are in the project as we develop these entrepreneurs, young and old alike”, says Jan.

Well, theres stil alot to do, but things are definately starting to take a decent shape! Remember, any questions or queries can be added to this blog or e-mail me at wesley@Neosho119.com

4 February '10

Hey there!
I've missed out a few days of the blog, things have been really busy for the team at Neosho this week, still trying to manage the time well with all the new projects taking shape.
On Tuesday morning Myself and Sharon Reed took a drive through to Witbank as Sharon had a meeting at the White River Beverages office, i took the opportunity to check out the water plant and learn a little about what they do. White River Beverages ( a black women empowerment company) actually recycles water! It's not as bad as it sounds though, what happens is that, due to all the blasting in the mines, the pressure pushes water from underground to the surface. So, these guys came up with a great idea to save the water from going to waste, a water refinery plant was constructed to pull the water from the mines and cleanse it, taking out all the unwanted chemicals, this water is sold to the municipality and whats left goes through the extra cleaning processes such as reverse osmosis and is then bottled and sold! clever. The waters brand name is 4Life H20. The partners involved are Lerato (private entity), Anglo Coal, Anglo Zimele and the Smith Brothers. You can check out more info on our projects page at Neosho119.com. Wednesday was just as busy, I went with Hanolet Uys (Neosho) and Mondli Guma (Anglo Zimele) to Ratanda so that we could interview the last few candidates from the area for the Vuka Programme. The difference between the Sharpeville intake and the Ratanda intake is that the guys from Ratanda are just so eager to be helped and really seem keen to get going, we had a really good time there and the energy from the people was great! When you get the time, check out the profiles on the Neosho site.. New applications are already stacking up for the second intake, it's a very exciting time for us here, busy..But exciting!

The first thing i thought about this morning was coffee!
I have just moved into my new place and spent most of the night sorting through my boxes, needless to say i was half asleep in the car! We headed off to go check out a new project that we've decided to take over,a skills development and entrepreneurial workshop by the name of Lepharo. I'll be documenting the growth of the men and women involved in the programme over the next few months. Lepharo was launched on the 11 october 2007, Zincor and Impala Platinum Limited being the initial partners, now they have been joined by the likes of SEDA, IZASA and the CDA to name a few. The training facilities are located on the Zincor premises in springs and is situated at 1 Plover street in Daggafontein. Zincor operates as South Africa's only zinc refinery and is part of the Exxaro group. I interviewed two of the people who have been coming to the centre for almost 2 years now, the project doesn't seem to be getting anywhere, thats why we have stepped in! It should be interesting to see how things go with this new project, the people i met seem keen and eager to get things rolling! Unfortunately they are still waiting for the neccesary training, tomorrow the electricity should be on at the workshops so we will head back that way and get started on the rest of the profiles!