Human Support

“Support” can mean anything from Spanx to a premium rate phone number, so I chose “human” as this is about the real thing - support from people.   This will be an ongoing subject because I enjoy ongoing support from, you guessed it, people J

This week I particularly felt the support of colleagues and professional associates. 

I had cause to reach out to people with whom I’ve shared professional challenges and successes.  I was buoyed up by their input.  I generally linked my job satisfaction and performance to them (a fantastic bunch). Achieving objectives with these expert colleagues was always a real buzz and I learned every time.  What I discovered is that they consider me an expert too.  It was extraordinary to read unambiguous accounts of our work together and discover I - marketing manager - was also instrumental in our projects and highly valued for it.  So a big thank you; you know who you are – and I can’t wait to work with you all again

I also benefitted from the Media Leaders event at Living Room, where I sweltered along with about 100 others and met some fantastic new professionals.  DLA Piper have a 21^st century working culture including its web activity; nice one.  Weber Shandwick has invested in a studio to offer cost effective video creation; another step forward for this leading PR agency.  Spoke about change management with an IT executive from PZ Cussons; good to know we’re all in it together on that front.  Talking about my own organisation, Forward Ladies, whose purpose is human support, ignited interest and buy-in from all, particularly two inspiring executives from BDB.  Thank so much Su Allen for bringing us together!

Finally, I stole some quite time to listen to an old Podcast in which this network, Forget-me-Not,  was featured and kinda made me think maybe human is the only support worth having:

http://www.innovationsindementia.org.uk/videos_walkinggroup.htm

My next event is:

http://www.forwardladies.com/networking-events-manchester/women-in-business-lunch-1870

Liberty and Sorority

Very early start last week with a Business Breakfast to initiate the Trafford Leadership Network, run by Trafford Partnership.  Fantastic to be in on something at the start, particularly something as optimistic and productive as this.  That was followed on Wednesday by lunch with other Forward Ladies at Cheshire Conference & Events.  As always, it was great to meet with other business women and I came away better informed and connected.  The mix was great with employed and self-employed women.  It emerged that running interests of our own alongside loyalty to our employers is good for both.  It enables us to diversify our own skills and experience, benefitting the employer, and provides an avenue of commercial independance should it be needed or wanted.

I attend many events and Forward Ladies are particularly rewarding.

On Thursday I met with a Forward Ladies member about event sponsorship before heading off to the The Point where 50 Trafford firms were appearing at a Business Showcase.  It’s a fantastic venue and the event demonstrated the local business community is as lively as ever, investing in sustaining themselves and sharing plans for growth.  The business week ended with a meeting at Betty’s Ilkley, that is a drive over gorgeous countryside and delicious cream tea, not to mention great decisions on all sides; result!

I found time today to “Listen Again” to the Reith Lecture, Aung San Suu Kyi: Liberty.  It was the right way to hear it as it deserved undivided attention.  I can’t recommend it enough, and hope it is still there now for you to listen to.  I’ll be scheduling that in for the next few weeks as this is one role model I will always learn from.

Next week I’ll be adding more Forward Ladies events and applying myself to content for the new Daisy Network site, but now I’m going out to catch the sun!

Premature Menopause – UK National Conference

Months of planning came to fruition on Saturday (18^th June 2011) with The Daisy Network’s 16^th Annual Conference.

The Conference is our Charity’s only national event, welcoming members from across the UK to hear the latest on managing premature menopause.  With a cracking line-up, including Nick Panay on health, Dr Beth Cartwright on research and Clare Grogan on adoption, the event attracted a record number of delegates with the room packed to bursting.

I was responsible for the delegate bag contents, online event management and securing an adoption speaker.  I have to confess, adding Clare Grogan, patron of BAAF, to our agenda has to be one of my proudest career moments!

Online registration helped members get tickets quickly and conveniently, and e-marketing ensured the full membership and online community knew about the event.  The goody bag was well served with a number of organisations contributing products to our Charity:

Nurture Replenish

Alpro

Green Spirit

Graze

Sylk

Vitabiotics

I found Nick Panay’s talk fantastic.  Treatments and best practice are developing continuously; The Daisy Network delivered in bringing the country foremost specialist medic to us.  My favourite was certainly Clare Grogan.  Clare was heartfelt and candid about the circumstances that led her to adoption, and passionate when expressing her love for her daughter.  The connect with the audience was direct, brining tears to eyes.

Feedback from the event has been fantastic, and I’m already thinking about the next one.  If you would like to support The Daisy Network, the UK’s only national peer support group for girls and young women with premature ovarian failure, please contact me.

Money Management

I really benefitted from the Forward Ladies half-day training I went on last week; “Your Money and How to Hang on To It”. 

The trainer was financial planning expert Flora Maudsley-Barton of Parsonage Group supported  by Amanda Turpin of Mitchell Charlesworth - and I now know what I ‘m doing about my tax return! 

This dry subject was lifted by Flora encouraging all us trainees to share life and business objectives, reminding us to tie our financial aspirations closely to them.  Amongst Forward Ladies trust emerges and we were all candid.  We know money is not an end in itself, but it was good to have an expert tell us!

From that strong start, the course went on to illuminate financial records, bookkeeping and basic tax allowances.  We laughed together at our foibles and errors – at least we can now nip them in the bud!  Valuable tips on how to keep the admin part of our efforts as straightforward as possible have already freed up time for me to write this! The investment and planning advice from Flora was great.  I don’t know about you but my foresight is often blinded by a pea-soup of financial terminology and figures.

This training will be repeated in September – and I can’t recommend it enough.