As BWiS co-chair, I’m delighted to announce that our next guest speaker event will be led by Lynne Featherstone MP.
Lynne is the Home Office Minister responsible for equality. Her background lies in design having run her own design company. Lynne has also worked for University College hospital and was director of a London-based electrical business.
Join us for lunch at Brooklands Hotel on Friday 22 June to hear Lynne and meet fellow Surrey business people.
See you there!
Last week at our annual Business Women in Surrey (BWiS) flagship event, we celebrated International Women’s Day in style with 100 guests at Sandown Park Racecourse.
Lots of local business people gathered to hear the inspiring stories of six women at the peak of their chosen careers: Emma Jones, Enterprise Nation; Fiamma Pather, yourSanctuary; Helen Collins, Surrey Police; Isobel Pooley, Team GB High Jump; Penny Power, Ecademy; Valerie Elliott, Sony.
The panel spoke of the issues faced and milestones reached, and how sometimes being a woman in the workplace brought its own independent challenges.
“I’ve had a career of two halves,” said Fiamma Pather of domestic abuse charity yourSanctuary. “Before children and after children.”
“Believe in yourself,” was Surrey Police’s Helen Collins’ top tip. “I wanted to be Juliet Bravo and when I became a detective inspector I was Juliet Bravo!”
Team GB high jumper Isobel Pooley, at only 19-years-old, also had some wise words to share: “Be a radiator not a drain and you will inspire others.”
It was a great evening with a real mix of local business people – both male and female – and lots of insightful comments and inspiring stories.
The event also launched a brand new free business mentoring service for Surrey Chambers Business Women in Surrey members – see our mentoring page – and an online portal for women in sport: www.women2012.co.uk
Following last year’s hugely successful relaunch, I’m very excited to announce the details of the 2012 Business Women in Surrey (BWiS) flagship event.
Taking place on International Women’s Day, Thursday 8 March, from 6-9pm at Sandown Park Racecourse in Esher, this year’s panel is equally impressive and inspiring and one not to be missed.
Helen Collins, detective chief superintendent, Surrey Police - Helen joined the police force in 1989 based at Weybridge. During her time at Surrey Police she has worked in a variety of roles including senior investigating officer with the Major Crime Investigation Team and detective chief inspector in the Public Protection Strategy Unit.
Emma Jones, founder, Enterprise Nation - A small business expert, Emma launched www.enterprisenation.com in 2006 to help anyone start and grow a business from home. Emma is also the author of several books including ‘Spare Room Start Up – how to start a business from home’, and ‘Working 5 to 9 – how to start a successful business in your spare time’.
Isobel Pooley, Great Britain high jumper - One of the potential members of team GB for the London 2012 Olympic Games, Isobel’s sporting journey began six years ago when she tried high jump for the very first time at secondary school. Since then she has been training several times a week in order to achieve excellence in the sport.
Penny Power, co-founder, Ecademy - In 1998 Penny founded Ecademy, the UK’s first social network for business, with her husband Thomas. Ecademy is now a global operation with members in over 200 countries. More recently, Penny has developed the Digital Youth Academy which trains and matches youths into jobs.
Tickets are selling fast so be quick! Call 01483 735540 or click here
Eight months on from its rebrand and relaunch, Surrey Chambers of Commerce Business Women in Surrey (BWIS) continues to go from strength to strength.
And as co-chair, along with Sally Pritchett, I have been very involved in that growth and development.
Last week we held our latest event – Ask the Marketing Panel – organised on the basis of feedback requesting marketing and communications (marcomms) help and advice.
Our impressive panel was made up of marcomms professionals from all walks of the business world, including charity (Rainbow Trust), corporate (Sony) and public sector (Surrey Police).
Interestingly, while the experiences of each where quite different, the overall issues remained much the same: tight budgets; overstretched resources; new versus traditional media.
Their comments and the audience’s questions were right on the mark, which made for an interesting and insightful evening.
Thanks goes to our panellists and all of you BWIS fans out there who attended.
See you at the next one!
Surrey Chambers Business Women in Surrey (BWIS) is pleased to announce its next main event, focusing on the timely and very topical subject of marketing.
In these austere times, marketing remains high on most organisations’ agendas. When competition for business is so fierce, she who shouts loudest is most definitely heard.
Thank you to all of you who have provided feedback on the type of event you would like to see more of. Here at BWIS we have listened and discussed, leading us to organise the Ask the Marketing Panel event which includes an impressive line-up of highly experienced marketing and communications professionals from all walks of the business world.
To hear their thoughts and top marketing and communications tips on everything from the essentials and challenges, to budget management, social media and traditional tools, book your place now. But be quick, as places are limited and demand is high!
Visit our events page for more information.
Before last year’s general election, ‘Big Society’ was nothing more than a buzz phrase bandied around by high-ranking Tories.
A fuzzy idea, with the basic argument being that people and businesses have the capacity and skills to improve local communities and services – they just need to be given the opportunity and responsibility to do so.
Now, one year on, we have a Tory-led coalition in power and Big Society is the mantra repeated by ministers whenever they’re called upon to justify another bout of public spending cuts.
In essence, cuts need to be made so the government makes them and then expects businesses to pick up the slack via their community engagement programmes.
Fine if you’re a multinational company with a significant corporate social responsibility budget and an army of volunteers, but no so workable perhaps for the smaller SME market. Is this all too much pressure for the small business owner and entrepreneur?
Not necessarily.
So long as the government continues to offer start-ups their support – and this includes assistance with their Big Society role – they will be able to do what they naturally strive to do and have been doing for years anyway: help the community.
At my company, Something Big, that’s exactly what we do and have been doing for a very long time. I applaud those who also do the same and encourage those just dipping their toe into these waters to go for it and dive in. Us smaller businesses have, and should have, a social conscience regardless of political pressure and buzzwords.
The Something Big team volunteers much of its time and energy working for local charities and businesses such as Disability Challengers, the Lightbox and Surrey Wildlife Trust. Not only does this make myself and my business partner feel good, it also breeds a nurturing culture among our members of staff who are encouraged and enjoy helping out.
So, all businesses large and small should continue to do their Big Society bit, but this should not be seen by the government as an excuse to make further public sector spending cuts as in turn they could end up biting the hand that feeds.
Fewer public sector organisations means fewer public sector clients, leading to fewer businesses serving the public sector and therefore employing fewer people able to volunteer to help out in their local [big] society…
It gives me great pleasure to announce that the Mauritius holiday prize, kindly donated by Beachcomber, has now been drawn and the lucky winner is Marina Dieck who is an executive coach at MDMC Management Consultants Ltd.
Marina is delighted with the news – who wouldn’t be! – and will hopefully be telling us more about it here on the Business Women in Surrey blog when she returns.
For more information and to see the prize draw taking place live at Beachcomber’s Guildford office click here: http://www.businesswomeninsurrey.co.uk/Win-a-luxury-break.html
Congratulations Marina!
Guest blog from Surrey business woman Zoe Brown, managing director, B Websites.
My name is Zoe Brown and I’m 36 year old. I am a mum and I’ve been a mum for ages; my eldest child is 20 years old.
That’s correct; I was a really really young mum.
Being a young mum was the driving force behind my career. With little resources as a teenager, I was faced with the big bad world. I had to support my daughter and I wanted something more than a checkout till at the local supermarket. I required flexibility and I desired stability.
Pretty much every decision I made from the age of 15 was calculated and driven by the goal of increasing my long-term career. I made it through school, sixth form and university and now run my own successful web agency with a small team of six.
I am proud of this achievement. No matter how much I hate to stereotype, I know for a fact that plenty of teenage mums have not been able to carve out their own career. While I did have the support of my family, I was never provided with any financial support and my choices were all of my own doing.
When I look back at the hardships and struggles I faced, I do see a positive side. My experiences were an excellent foundation for running my own business. I know how to look after the pennies, I understand about financial risk and return, I am super efficient and can ‘plan’ my way out (or into) any number of situations on the spot. Being a mother has provided me with skills never taught in a classroom. Multi-tasking and emergency strategy planning are daily occurrences!
My 20 year old now has four younger brothers and sisters aged six, four, one and six months. My 24 hours are squeezed to the max every single day. But I have been able to carve out a successful business around my children. I expect there have been compromises along the way but can you show me a family that is perfect?
What works for me is not going to be right for everyone, and even what is right for me changes from time to time. Flexibility and analysis are both key to my success in business and at home.
Over the last few weeks, I have heard a great deal about apprenticeships and I think it’s an area we business women could have a real impact on.
There are too many young people unemployed at the moment and many of them would love to be learning while working. And there has never been a better time to take on an apprentice: employers have been reaping the benefits of apprenticeships for years.
In summary, apprenticeships are work-based training programmes designed around the needs of employers, which lead to nationally recognised qualifications.
Employers benefit from gaining employees who are trained to industry standards and bring loyalty, productivity and creative thinking to their business. There’s no doubt that trained staff give businesses a competitive edge and 83% of employers rely on their apprenticeship programme to provide the skilled workers their business needs for the future.
Contrary to many people’s understanding, there are over 200 types of apprenticeships suitable for hundreds of job roles within a variety of industry sectors ranging from accountancy and engineering to veterinary nursing and floristry. The minimum wage for an apprentice is £2.50 an hour although most employers pay more than this.
If you’re thinking “that seems like hard work” and “how would I find the right person?”, help is at hand. There is a free advertising service on the apprenticeships website to help you find the right person for the job saving you recruitment costs. Your training provider will manage the process for you from posting your advert online to assessing the apprentice throughout their training.
Business Women in Surrey co-chair Sally Pritchett has started the process to find an apprentice so let’s see how many other Business Women in Surrey apprentices we can take on.
For more information visit apprenticeships.org.uk or call 08000 150 600. Alternatively, talk to us at Surrey Chambers and we will help you find the right contacts.
On the 100th anniversary of International Women’s Day – 8 March – Surrey Chambers launched its rebranded Business Women in Surrey group.
And what a huge success it was!
The flagship event at Mercedes-Benz World in Weybridge attracted over 170 attendees, all keen to hear the career journeys and stories of five inspirational speakers and engage with them in a lively Question Time style debate.
Surrey County Council assistant chief executive, Susie Kemp, began by sharing her experiences of working with Robert Maxwell and running her own business before moving into the public sector. And Shell global senior manager Linda Phillips talked about time spent working for Samsung and now Shell, where she commented on being delighted to have found a company that really understands and supports women.
Lauren Westwood, managing director of her own gemstone jewellery business Westwood Rocks, explained how a gap year led to Godalming and her first Westwood Rocks shop: now one of seven around the UK.
From the world of media, Surrey Life magazine editor Caroline Harrap proudly commented on how she turned a loved but rather tired local mag into the profit-making award-winning title it is today. And Helen Loveless from national newspaper the Financial Mail joked that an early short-lived spell in sales – which she hated – thankfully turned into a long-term career in journalism which she loves.
Clearly, this event and the relaunch of Surrey Chambers Business Women in Surrey has filled a gap in the local female business networking market: just as we thought it would.
But this is just the beginning. We have many more events, workshops and seminars to come and we are also rolling out a mentoring scheme.
So keep talking to us and in turn we’ll do our best to keep delivering to you.
