A Cool Yule

from Dales Directory Christmas Issue 2021

Recipe: Sachertortte

Kip in Matlock and Chesterfield is celebrating its 10-year anniversary! But how did it all begin?

Do you remember the winter of 2010 all that snow and ice that hung around for months? We had seen nothing like it for years. Well Jo was then living and working as the Principal of an FE college in Lebanon and had taken off from Beirut to come home to her family for Christmas… but it wasn’t as easy as she thought!

When she arrived in Heathrow there were no trains to get her to St Pancras station, and no tickets from there to Derby either! She then tried all the car hire firms so she could drive home, but again they had nothing. Travel at Christmas is always a challenge, but Jo was really up against it! Eventually she managed to get a flight up to Manchester where she hired a car to drive home, freezing in her warm climate clothing. So, what

does this have to do with the formation of Kip in Matlock?

Well, the Matlock Kip was born over a cup of coffee with Jo’s sister sitting beside a warm open fire and talking about what Jo wanted to do next in her career and where. The snow didn’t put her off the idea of moving back to the UK, but she needed something to work towards. Taking the decision to ‘go it alone’ and set up her own business was a big step (as it is for anyone who has never done this before). So, Jo went back to Beirut and handed in her notice which had to be a year! Kip offered Jo an outlet for her teaching and managerial talents, so she opened Kip McGrath Matlock in April 2012 and had 1 student and a couple of computers! Chesterfield opened the following year in April 2013 again with one student. It takes time to grow a business and get the marketing into the right places to attract new students and Jo saw a steady trickle of students into Matlock and Chesterfield until today she can proudly claim to have helped 910 young people into their career choices, raised their educational levels in mainstream school and made a lot of new friends with the young people, their parents and grandparents. Jo gets most of her new students from existing families and word of mouth by parents spreading her success stories. She is now onto her third or fourth sibling in some families. One family has the full set: Charlie in Year 11, the youngest one aged 6 and the middle brothers 10 and 13 already working away with her. But it’s not just parents who seek her out… Local schools use her directly and now the County Council is requisitioning her services with special needs children who need more individualised and personal support.