Luxury chocolates are about indulgence. They give us little moments of excess in which we allow ourselves a brief bite of lavishness in an otherwise sensible and responsible day.

However the complete lack of any need for such expensive treats can lead to unfortunate traces of guilt when we buy them and this, annoyingly, will usually put us off. In these situations I often think to myself “If only there was a way that I could be helping homeless people to a new chance in life whilst spoiling myself to a face full of chocolate”.

Beyond Boyle has given me a solution, and it’s their new range of Beyond Chocolate Luxury Truffles.

Founded by chef, charity worker and all round lovely man Simon Boyle, Beyond Boyle is a hospitality company that has evolved into a social enterprise. After working with tsunami victims in 2004 Simon returned home and set up the Beyond Boyle Foundation to give greater focus to his charity efforts, and by working in partnership with several homeless charities he has developed a program to give those who have experienced homelessness the chance to start a career in cooking.

Participants begin the two year apprenticeship by learning basic cooking techniques and kitchen regulations, and as they progress to more advance skills they work alongside professional chefs at Beyond Boyles’ own hospitality events. The training is complimented with personal development coaching to rebuild their confidence, the aim being that participants not only achieve paid employment, but are motivated in starting a career. By the end of the program they have all the necessary expertise to cook fine cuisine, with many of those who make the grade going on to work for Beyond Boyle professionally.

If all this behind the scenes stuff isn’t enough then you might like to know that the chocolates themselves are made from ethically sourced, home grown ingredients, and are free of nuts, egg and gluten. They are suitable for vegetarians and are available in dark chocolate, peppermint tea and caramelised orange flavours. You can find them on the Beyond Boyle website or at Waitrose for the special introductory price of £6.49. They taste lovely as well!

So if your looking for a way to be indulgent and responsible then look no further, and if you just want to treat yourself then why not help out the homeless while your at it.

http://www.youtube.com/user/BeyondBoyle

http://www.beyondboyle.com/shop/

Remember Green Thing? We introduced you to him last year and while he may appear to be a hideous monster he is, in fact, not hideous at all.

The Green Thing is a not-for-profit organisation designed to promote sustainable living.  The Green Thing website is full of inspiring videos and stories from creative people around the world with excellent ideas for leading a greener life.

And Green Thing is two years old this week.  Happy Birthday Green Thing!

One of Green Thing’s recent brilliant ideas is Glove Love: a project designed to reduce waste and encourage re-use.  Green Thing describes Glove Love as “the stylish and sustainable union of the country’s single gloves.”

Green Thing are collecting lost and lonely gloves, washing them, finding them a new partner and then selling them.  When you buy a pair of Glove Love gloves, you can specify your size but the pair you receive will be a surprise.

Warm your hands and warm your heart, knowing that you have done a little bit to help the environment.  And made two lonely gloves very happy.

Rachel Pattisson is a freelance copy writer. She writes a blog called Really Rachel and you can hire her here: ThoughtTrains.co.uk.

In his talk from TEDGlobal 2009 Geoff Mulgan, a former Policy Director for Tony Blair, suggests we take the opportunity presented by the global economic crisis to consider a shift of focus towards investing in social innovation.

1. Deepening relationships and engagement
2. Allowing individuals & small groups to self-organise
3. Facilitating collaboration and crowdsourcing
4. Being adopted behind the scenes

The optimistic conclusion:

As more and more non-profits adopt social media and their practice improves over time, we will no doubt see a transformation of the non-profit sector.

Click here to read the full article.

“Five years ago, an amazing teacher or professor with the ability to truly catalyze the lives of his or her students could realistically hope to impact maybe 100 people each year. Today that same teacher can have their words spread on video to millions of eager students.”
- Chris Anderson, TED Curator (source)

The organisers of the TED conference already make great efforts to spread the messages from TED talks – you can watch the talks on the TED website and on YouTube. In an effort to spread the message yet further – to all corners of the earth – the organisers recently announced that a new translation platform will be launched next month! It will be “an open, crowd-sourced solution that puts translation tools in the hands of users.”

This model has worked well for Facebook. Nearly 1,500 Spanish-speaking users on Facebook helped translate the site from English to Spanish in less than four weeks (seriously!). Now the 2.8m Facebook users in Latin America and Spain and many more around the world can enjoy the site in Spanish!

If you’re interested in joining the community of TED translators then they’d love to hear from you! Click here to find out more or drop an email to subtitles@ted.com and get involved!

Last week was TED week in Long Beach, California. The conference (which we’ve written about before) gives the stage to some of the most fascinating people from around the world to talk for twenty minutes about any topic close to their heart. The talks are then published online, free for all to watch.

The first talks from TED 2009 are beginning to be released on the TED website and on YouTube and I’ve embedded the first couple below. First up is Elizabeth Gilbert sharing her thoughts on a different way to think about creative genius:

Next, Bill Gates discussing his latest endeavours in venture philanthropy:

To give you a flavour of Dave’s attitude to life, here are the two quotes on his homepage:

“Fun is good.”
- Dr. Seuss

“The less confident you are, the more serious you have to act.”
- Tara Ploughman

Dave also keeps an entertaining, informative and slightly crazy blog which is definitely worth a look!

Embedded below is the remarkable story of how TED came to exist in it’s current incarnation. My favourite talks include: juggling, education, classical music, how it feels to have a stroke, Tony Robbins, Richard Branson, Hans Rosling and Joshua Klein on the amazing intelligence of crows. (Can you tell I’m a fan?)

If you like these talks then I believe the best thing you can do is share them with your friends. So go out and spread the word; and if you haven’t seen them before – prepare to be inspired!