Welcome to the ThreeMail, the occasional newsletter from Three Hands - a brief update on how we've been helping businesses to develop their people through community engagement, and other bits and pieces we think will be interesting.

In this issue:

• Meaning at work - we all need it!
• Developing leaders at Sky... with young people in south London
• Highlights - A glamorous ball, a fundraising strategy, a sports day and more
• New horizons - Three Hands in India
• A new hand - ex-Shell sustainability head joins our team of Associates

2007 has been a year in which the fact that 'business and society cannot work in isolation of one another' has resonated more than ever before. More and more companies are connecting with causes beyond their core business and offering original ways of engaging and developing their people in the context of wider society.

We think that some of the reason behind this is that the issue of 'meaning' at work is growing in importance. We love what Gurnek Bains said in 'Meaning Inc':
"For 21st Century companies, the key to raising levels of performance is to create a sense of meaning for their employees... meaning arises when people are able to connect what they are doing to things that matter to them." We expand on this on our new About Three Hands page.

We recently helped Sky incorporate a new type of meaning into leadership development, by partnering 23 Sky leaders with 'hard to reach' young people in south London. What a way to start an 18-month leadership development programme! More

We've run plenty of other exciting programmes over the last few months that illustrate the power of learning through community engagement. A group from Adam & Company were responsible for Breast Cancer Campaign's first ever fundraising ball in Scotland (find out more), a senior team from Travelex put on a sports event for young people in Newham (find out more), a group from Kroll devised a fundraising strategy for national charity Place2Be (find out more), and a multi-company team on our first ever open programme worked with young people from Kids Company (find out more).

On a separate note, Three Hands' founder, Simon Hamilton, has just come back from a month in India, where he's been making links with NGOs and community organisations, with a view to giving teams and groups exceptional learning experiences. Find out more about his trip.

We're very excited to welcome Dr Mark Wade, former head of Sustainable Development at Shell, to our team of Associates and we're ready to apply his expertise on social investment to some new and innovative programmes in 2008.

Finally, with the experience of 2007 under our belts, we've been doing some thinking about what we've learnt and how we contribute to businesses and charity partners ' we've summed it up on our new website pages How we help business and What makes us unique.

Thanks for reading and best wishes for the Christmas season!