RISE_Talks

RISEtalks is an opportunity for RISE members to meet and share knowledge and experiences.

Experts provide training of their areas of expertise and RISE members pitch their business ideas and their scaling ideas.

Within the planning and evaluation tool that we use (ROPE), learning lessons and taking informed decisions is key.

RISEtalks were introduced early 2022. It is never easy to introduce a new concept. But when fully established it will be a strong tool for us to empower profitable businesses.

The RISEtalks help RISEmembers to realise that

  1. They are sharing the same capital for their loans and that scaling up of loans depends on other RISE members to pay back.
  2. The HR&S Branch is an enterprise itself and depends on the interest and RISE member fee as income to cover its own business cost.

Session planning & Branch coordination

  •  Reoccurring event: 2nd week-end / Monday every second month; Feb, April, June, Aug, Oct, Dec.
  • Each RISEtalks invitation must have an agenda or a topic that will be addressed. Each session starts with  30 min training and then a reflection from each RISE member on the topic of the training. Then RISE members or potential RISE members pitching their business or their business scale-up. Then, a discussion on outcome challenges and related activities and milestones.
  • All Branches provide training and discuss the same topic during the same session Feb – Accounting, April – ROPE, June – Business management, Aug – TestE, Oct – customer surveys, Dec – branding and marketing.
  • The event is for one hour, the time is prolonged to two hours if need be.

  • We run RISEtalks as a sequence, one Branch starts every hour. Thereby it is possible to attend our own Branch RISEtalks and then also others’. 
  • We use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) as reference; Liberia, Togo, Burkina Faso: UTC +0; Nigeria, SwedenWinter: UTC +1; Zambia, Rwanda, SwedenSummer UTC +2; Kenya, Uganda UTC +3
    Then if Liberia starts 8 am, Togo 9 am, Burkina 10 am, Nigeria 11 am (12 noon local), Zambia 12 noon (2 pm local) Rwanda 1 pm (2 pm local), Kenya 2 pm (5 pm local) Uganda 3 pm (6 pm local).
    OR everyone start 11 am local time (the sessions in Kenya and Uganda will be very early in WestAfrica, from 8 am, but maybe possible) then we are all done by noon (if one hour session). Countries with the same time-zones run their session in parallel.
  • The team-leader or deputy team-leader is the chair person.
  • Deputy-team leader (or a substitute) take notes. Just a few sentences or more, so that we remember what we have been agreeing on, and that those who did not attend can catch up. The notes are posted on HR&S website for easy reference (as with ActionTalks).
  • All Branch team members together with the RISEmembers are invited and are strongly advised to attend their own session and one or two more sessions (or more). The RISE members are the most important participants, and RISEtalks cannot take place without RISEmembers being present.
  • RISEtalks are preferable arranged IRL for the country partners, combined with zoom links for those who cannot attend physically.

 

RISE Kenya

Date: April 2022
Topic: Accounting training by Ann.
Attending:Millicent SIFUNA , Cecilia ÖMAN, Sweden, Ann, Mariam, Kevin Kennedy, Moses from Uganda, Doreen from Uganda
Meeting notes by Cecilia:Ann presented about accounting and about the status of the Kenya RISE members. She shared her power point in the accountant chat after the meeting. Kennedy was supposed to pitch but could not due to weak network.

Date: June 2022
Topic: ROPE training by Millicent. But as no RISE members attended but a potentially new RISE member Kennedy, we decided to discuss outcome challenges instead, and postpone the ROPE training.
Attending:Millicen , Cecilia, Ann, (Mariam came late), Kevin, Kennedy.
Meeting notes by Cecilia: It was concluded that RISE members claim that their outcome challenge is related to money, but when they receive a loan they are not reaching their ambitions anyway. We agreed to work on identifying other key outcome challenges. We also agreed to review Kennedy’s business.

RISE Nigeria

Date: 29 April 2022
Topic: MumsWhoCode empowerment
Attending:Elvis, Theophilus, Aghama, Mrs Grace.
Meeting notes by Elvis:

  • The first RISE Member meeting was concluded successfully with MomWhoCode as a case study.
  • The presentation was centered on how to start small and grow big.
  • MomWhoCode was delighted to hear ways they can explore for the purpose of generating income.
  • Among others, we talked about logo design and low or no code services.
  • Mr. Theophilus supported the motion of starting small as a means to validate a business.
  • We also look into other areas like revenue sharing percentage between MomWhoCode and its facilitators.
  • Mr. Theophilus invited Mrs. Grace, an Abuja-based woman with some experience in events/training and catering services. He recommend her to be a member of RISE Nigeria if possible.
  • We concluded the meeting with high hopes for the future.

RISE Uganda

Date: May 2022
Topic: Presentation by three new potential RISE members.
Attending: Moses, Joel?, Doreen? the three business leaders.
Meeting notes :

Date: June 2022
Topic: Presentation by three new potential RISE members.
Attending: Moses, Joel?, Doreen? the three business leaders.
Meeting notes :