"Oh Me. Oh My. I hope the Little Mentor Comes By" - The Banks New Mentoring Network

"Oh me! Oh my. I hope the little lady comes by".

That was the chorus of "Leaning on a Lamp Post", one of the late George Formby's hits. I actually saw Formby perform the song after a pantomime at the Palace Theatre in London a few years before he died. I think it was the first time I had ever been in a theatre. My mother and one of my aunts, Northern exiles in the Smoke were entranced, though I couldn't see what the fuss was about. All I can remember was an old man who laughed at his own jokes quite a lot.

Anyway, I digress. I was reminded of the lyrics of the Formby song by the domain name of the new mentoring network, mentorsme.co.uk. According to its website:

"mentorsme.co.uk is operated by the Business Finance Taskforce, which has been set up by the British Bankers’ Association and is made up of five banks: Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander. The taskforce was established to help businesses access the finance they need to grow."

This seems to be the new mentoring network that I discussed in "Son of Business Link" on 16 Nov last year. I have googled "Business Finance Task Force" and came up with this page and a report published last October on the British Bankers Association website.

mentorsme.co.uk describes itself as "Britain’s first online gateway for small and medium-sized enterprises looking for mentoring services." There is a database on the home page searchable by "Business Life Stage" and "Region".

I searched "Show All" for "Yorkshire and Humberside" and came up with "Success Doncaster" and "Business and Education South Yorkshire" plus a number of organizations offering national coverage some of which were on-line only organizations. I made the same search for North West England and came up with considerably more local organizations. I shall be checking these out over the next few days in my IP Yorkshire and IP North West blogs.

Not really a replacement for advisers of the calibre of Jane Hurn and Mary Roberts but better than nothing. I will keep you posted.