Enfys summer 2013

Enfys Your Views

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Inside this issue: Read about your colleague’s travels and adventures Catch up on what the Business Development Team have been up to Vision and Mission—our journey so far…

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Editor’s Welcome

Welcome to the Sumnmer edition of Enfys!

We’ve got a fantastic issue for you this quarter with stories of summer holidays, charity work, bike rides and marathons as well as the usual office and team updates .

We also have a summary of the Chwarae Teg Research Roadshow, an update from Joy on our Vision and Mission and some fun summer recipes.

As ever a massive thanks to everyone that has contributed content. We couldn’t make Enfys happen without you.

So that just leaves me to say enjoy reading and start thinking about what you might want to include in the October issue!

Happy Holidays

The Enfys Team

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What’s Occurring? r Court o h c n A It’s been a busy few months in Anchor Court as usual with all departments working flat out to deliver the research launch events and Chwarae Teg conference.

We have temporarily loaned Anne to Treforest as she took up the Regional Project Administrator role on a secondment basis . Anne is sorely missed and we look forward to welcoming her back to Anchor Court in the future.

We briefly welcomed Laura to the team, who joined us as part of the Leonardo Da Vinci project. Laura worked with the marketing team for a few weeks during April and May and also helped a few of us improve our French. It was a pleasure working with Laura and we were all sad to see her leave.

Jenni jetted off to Crete to get married (pictures can be found on page 16). Obviously we had to make sure she had a great send off so a few of us ventured out in tiaras and heels for food and a few cocktails! Emma is next to get married and we look forward to her hen in a few months—pictures will follow in the next Enfys!

We’ve had a number of birthdays to celebrate including Tash, Jenni, Emma, Judy, and Jane. Needless to say much cake has been eaten!

Debs and Tash got a taste of Christmas a little early at the Future Inns. While a little surreal it was a brilliant evening!

As ever a number of us have jetted off on holiday (some more exotic than others!) with Joy having returned recently form Spain, Sharon enjoying a break way to Ibiza, Chris heading over to Menorca, Emma had a break to Nice, Cannes and Monaco, Jane headed to Wimbeldon and lived the high life in London, Ann Elliot enjoyed 2 weeks in Malta, Debs went to Cyprus and Tash roughed it for a week at Download! (Phew!)

We’re looking forward to another busy couple of months and look forward to sharing our stories with you next issue.

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What’s Occurring?

It’s been a sad time in Colwyn Bay as Susie left us for pastures new and has moved to Cardiff to work for the Welsh Centre for International Affairs as Assistant Chief Executive. Not only is it so quiet without her, but her desk is spookily tidy!

We all wish her well and our only consolation is that we will hopefully be able to meet up when we travel to Cardiff for our staff events.

Nor

th W ales

Amy recently went to Plzen in the Czech Republic with Cathy Kennedy to meet with our new transnational partners at the Cristal Project. The trip went really well and Amy reported back that the HR professionals who attended the seminar on Work-life balance were really impressed with how progressive we are at Chwarae Teg and in Wales in general. When Amy reported that she is able to work her hours over 3.5 days, it provoked a massive debate and discussion and was clearly a novel concept. Amy managed to cram in a 2 hour whistle stop tour of Prague as well!

Amy also visited Brussels which provided us with the opportunity to showcase ‘A woman’s place’ and the success of the Agile Nation Project. The sun was shining when Amy arrived which is always a good sign! Amy reported that it was quite an experience getting to present the findings in the European Parliament buildings and talk directly to people to MEPs and members of the European Commission. The research was very well received and Chwarae Teg came up trumps again. It was also good to meet with our Belgian partners at JUMP and discuss future transnational collaboration.

We are sadly on the last lap of the Ascent project with only three more courses to run but still plenty to do to achieve the targets and outcomes required. Siân and Quita are looking forward to running the new Understanding Modern Working Practices modules and we still have two more Equality & Diversity modules to complete. We are on our second run of Mentoring Sessions starting in June and which have proved to be very popular with our participants.

Dewi successfully ran the Rome marathon in May and despite the groans of ‘I will never run a marathon again’ has since run the Snowdonia half marathon and the Great Manchester run.

Good job he decided not to run any more marathons then!

Siân, Susie and Dewi also decided to take their lives in their own hands and zip down at 80 miles per hour, along the mile long, 700ft high, new zip wire in Penrhyn Quarry in Snowdonia. They tell me the scenery was spectacular but then you’d have to keep your eyes open to admire the view!

Jane has decided to give up her famous sea view and has moved home to a nice quiet cottage in the countryside next to a cattery. Apparently the cats all enjoy opera so she can sing to her heart’s content and all cats will return to their owners serene and relaxed.

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Chwarae Teg’s Research Roadshow A Woman’s Place Launch Since the last edition of Enfys, the policy team has been busy promoting A Woman’s Place through a series of events across Europe. We launched the research in April at The Pierhead building in Cardiff Bay which was packed out with Chwarae Teg supporters. Over 150 people attended the event which received a lot of media attention. For an hour and a half, Twitter went mad with tweets and re-tweets, there was a 17% increase in followers as a result.

On the day, we were fortunate to be joined by Huw Lewis, then Minister for Communities and Tackling Poverty who spoke about the work the Welsh Government is doing to support women in Wales. We also welcomed a panel of Assembly Members from all parties who shared their views about what needs to happen to support women to achieve equality in the workplace. A number of key people stopped by to show their support, including Rosemary Butler, the Presiding Officer for Wales, and we were really pleased to see many key players attending on the day. We were overwhelmed by the energy in the room and it was clear that many people believe that the issues facing women in the Welsh workplace must be addressed. The event was sponsored by Ken Skates AM who is now Deputy Minister for Skills and Technology who spoke passionately about the importance of increasing the number of females in apprenticeships.

High on our success, we delivered another event in the House of Commons which was also well attended. A number of politicians joined us to discuss the findings including Peter Hain, Jessica Morden, Nia Griffith and Jonathan Edwards and the event was sponsored by the new MP for Cardiff South and Penarth, Stephen Doughty. There was lots of discussion about the barriers facing women in the workplace across the UK and we made some strong links with partner organisations such as Business in the Community and the Fawcett Society.

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Chwarae Teg’s Research Roadshow Our final trip was to the European Parliament in Brussels. Early in June, five of us boarded Eurostar to begin the final leg of our research roadshow. This event was sponsored by Jill Evans MEP and brought together European partners also working to promote gender equality. We were pleased to be joined also

by Derek Vaughan MEP who took part in the debate and again, we developed some useful contacts and partnerships to take forward into the future.

We are now moving into a series of workshops with individuals across Wales to get their views on the findings and how to make the workplace more welcoming for women. And we are going to be exploring ideas for a cross-party group within the National Assembly for Wales which will investigate the issues further and inform policy going forward.

There is no doubt that the launch of A Woman’s Place was a resounding success which reinforced our reputation as expert in gender equality. In fact, the launch was such a success we are now waiting to see if we have been shortlisted for a CIPR award….. watch this space!!

Speed writing tips Some of our colleagues recently attended a sped writing course and picked up some great hints and tips top help when taking notes. Here’s the top 3 if you want to have a go.

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Use some common abbreviations that you may make use of when texting but don’t when taking notes - & = and

- 2 = to/ too

- c = see

- ie = that is

- r = are

- w/ = with

2. try dropping the initial vowel in common words like ‘of’. E.g.

- s = is

- lk = look

- t = it

- wlk = walk

- f = of

- prt = part

3. Omit all silent letters and just write what you hear e.g.

- no = know

- ltl = little

- btr= better

- scs = success 6

Vision and Mission Update Vision and mission – feedback and next steps…

Hi all, Thanks so much for all your feedback both on the way we communicated the first steps in refreshing our vision and mission and for taking the time to discuss and feedback all your ideas. There are some really useful suggestions there I think.

I understand the reservations around using the term “financial independence” – maybe I should have explained that what I was trying to get at was a more plain English version of what we say at the moment – “economic development” which I feel is too policy speak to mean anything to the general public. Based on the feedback though, I can see that it might not encapsulate what our ultimate goal is.

From my first read through of all the feedback received I think there are some really great ideas. I was particularly taken with “women progressing and society benefiting” and using women/work/ Wales in some way and I think we’ve got some agreement over the kind of words we want to use and some real potential for straplines etc.

I don’t think we’ve hit on the vision statement as yet but it’s good that we’re clearer on the mission elements (I don’t think this is unusual as it’s generally easier to know what you do rather than why you do it!). Just to be clear, the vision is what we are aiming for – it’s why we do what we do rather than describing what we do and it doesn’t need to be achievable. So for example, Oxfam’s vision is “a just world without poverty” – obviously something that they don’t expect to achieve on their own nor something the staff would necessarily expect to see in their lifetimes but it explains why they exist and enables the people who work there to reflect on what they’ve done that day and whether it has contributed something to their ultimate goal.

I was interested in the discussions around women being free to make decisions about whether they work or not at a particular moment in their lives. Although as a personal opinion I agree that everyone (not just women) has the right to make choices about their lifestyles etc, unless we were to ditch the pursuit of the economic development of women as the reason we exist (which I’m not suggesting), I don’t see us having a mission or vision or carrying out activities that encourage women (or men) to make a decision not to work/be economically in-active. I think we’ve got enough to do without broadening it out that far!

So the next step will be to bring all your thoughts together with those of external consultees and share with the board on 9th July for further discussion. I hope from there we will have some options on vision and mission statements which we can then share with women and networks we’ve got access to – I definitely think it would be good to take up the suggestion made about involving the women who have accessed our services in that – any other networks etc we have access to personally or professionally would also be good. The plan is that we have an agreed final vision and mission which will shape the future of the organisation for the board to sign off at the September meeting.

I hope this helpful in keeping you in the loop. Please feel free to get back to me on any of the above or even better - if you have one of those Eureka! moments where the perfect vision statement jumps into your head.

Here’s to a great summer!

Joy 7

Business Development Hub Update

Review of Networks, Membership and Solutions products Under the current review of the Mission and Vision, the BDH team have been hoovering-up information on Chwarae Teg’s Networks, Membership and Solutions products. This has involved obtaining feedback from various members of staff on whether these services meet the needs of our current audience, are relevant and are providing opportunities to grow the organisation. Thanks to those of you who have helped us do this.

On our Radar Trish and Jane have been out and about building relationships and developing opportunities for commercial activities with organisations such as PLANED, HSBC, GE Aviation Wales and The Principality Building Society. Watch this space...

Work-life Balance Network We are currently planning for our next round of events which will be taking place in October 2013 across Wales. Sian Hayward from Monmouthshire County Borough Council joins us and who will be sharing the benefits of Agile Working. Further details can be found here.

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Summer Snaps!

Tash does Download!

I enjoyed 5 days in considerably less mud than last year at Download festival. It was a great 5 days and I got to see some of my favourite bands. Despite being slightly damp at times I still managed to catch some sun and am already looking forward to next year!!

Emma’s trip to France

o eum s u M Nice n Art er Mod

f

Monaco Grand Prix (Not sure Button will get far with that car!)

Festival de Cannes!

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Staff Experiences In March this year I went to Andhra Pradesh in India to visit a project my church supports. The project runs orphanages, homes for the elderly, shelters for runaway railway children and cares for some of India's most poor and vulnerable people.

To ensure the good work that's being done can continue, my Youth group has signed up to do a sponsored walk- Bwlch with Altitude!

More info here: http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/oasischurchyouth If you think you’d like to make a donation, however big or small, it'd make our day! But on a more serious note, it has the potential to bring hope in a hopeless situation.

(Few pics of my trip are below) Thank you so much, Anwen

I took part in this year’s Dragon Ride on the 9 th June. I completed the 128km ride in 5:24.10 beating my time last year by 25 minutes! I’m also going to be supporting the British riders at this year’s Tour de France and will be one of over one million spectators expected on Mont Ventoux and at l’Alpe d’Huez in the French Alps as it’s the centenary tour.

I’m also looking forward to running the Cardiff 10K in support of Kidney Research Wales with my Chwarae Teg colleagues in September. All donations are welcome! http:// cardiff10kfundraising.com/ chwarae_teg Andrew Reed 10

Staff Experiences All Roads Lead To Rome It was a pleasant evening in mid-August. A Friday night, the end of the working week, and a perfect opportunity to catch up with a few old friends I hadn’t seen for a while. Along came Saturday morning with one crashing realisation. I’d entered myself into the Rome marathon.

It seems you need 3 things to enter a marathon: Wetherspoons’ free Wi-Fi, peer pressure and a healthy disregard for your knees. So there it was. March 17 th 2013. I had roughly 7 months to get ready for running just over 26 miles. I’d never been to Rome before. After hearing so many great things about the city, my foolish brain still thought it was a good idea.

The winter months passed where, as well as occasionally running a few miles here and there, I employed some very unorthodox training methods; eating crisps and watching DVD’s. In the meantime my friend Simon, who had also entered the marathon, was in a much more confident mood having completed the Berlin marathon last year. This is otherwise known as cheating.

In no time at all, it was 2013. I realised I didn’t want to be the first person in Rome marathon history to be brought back on the bus from the 1 mile checkpoint. I read endless marathon tips and guides about getting into the race ‘mind-set’ and trying to experience what it would be like. I properly started my training. I got a GPS watch that could calculate running pace and calories used. Things started to get a bit more serious.

During January and February I completed the Great Orme 10K, Twin Piers 10K, Blackpool Half Marathon and Anglesey Half Marathon. I had my very own Chwarae Teg coaching team. Mair – my Head Coach, Quita – my Sports Nutritionist and Jane – my Sports Psychologist.

March came along all too quickly and we landed in Rome exactly 24 hours before the race was due to start. Luckily we’d managed to avoid the biggest potential injury risk during the journey - the restricted leg room on a Ryanair flight.

After a short journey in a packed and stuffy shuttle bus, we were dropped off in the middle of the city where we finally had a chance to look at our surroundings.

We eventually reached the apartment, complete with a balcony and a stunning panoramic view down the terraced street towards the world-famous Colloseum. A restless night soon followed.

Race day. Which meant setting alarms and waking up at 5am to eat a giant bowl of pasta and drinking copious litres of the finest Italian tap water. We were ready for the 9am start. The start line was on Via dei Fori Imperiali, which ran alongside the Colloseum. It was time. What could possibly go wrong?

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Staff Experiences We made our way towards the start line. It seemed strange that there were young children and people in brightly coloured costumes heading the same way. It also seemed strange that everyone had different coloured numbers on their shirts compared to us.

Suddenly a race marshal came over, spotting the numbers pinned to our chests and repeated “Maratona! Maratona!” whilst gesturing towards the other side of the Colloseum. It seemed we’d almost inadvertently entered the 5km fun run that was due to start later on that day. In hindsight, maybe this would’ve been the better choice.

Finally, positioned amongst the crowd behind the correct start line, we were there. I felt like a frozen pizza that had spent 10 minutes in an un-preheated oven. I may have looked ready but I really, really wasn’t.

I can honestly say the first 3 hours flew by. We distracted each other by discussing some fairly weighty issues; our aspirations, our futures and which of the Die Hard films is the best.

Around the 22 mile mark, I heard a painful cry. Looking to my right, Simon had completely stopped with a huge grimace of pain across his face. “What’s wrong? What hurts?” I asked.

“My everything” he helpfully groaned. After a few moments of helplessly hovering around, he told me to carry on and finish the race. He said he’d be fine and asked me how many times would I ever get to do this again? I pushed onwards.

Having just passed the 24 mile mark, I was astounded to hear another painful cry. The bad news was that his one had escaped from my own mouth.

My thoughts quickly changed from “Oh I hope I beat the 4 hour mark” to “Oh I hope I’ll get to see my family again”.

I slowed to a crawl, my knees seizing up, my calves burning. I’d have to walk. I stopped. Time to quit.

“So are we doing this or not?” a familiar voice shouted behind me. A reinvigorated Simon, full of Powerade, water and jelly babies was suddenly by my side urging me to start moving again. The final 2 miles passed in a dehydrated blur until we crossed the finish line side by side. 4 hours, 11 minutes and 3,276 calories later it was over (the equivalent to 105 tins of Weight Watchers Chicken Soup for those who are wondering).

It was one of the most exhausting, challenging and rewarding experiences of my life. An experience I’ve told myself I’ll never, ever do again.

Well…. until the next one of course.

Dewi Jones 12

Spotlighted Kim received a lovely gift to say thank you from her recent ILM Level 2 participants.

Among the feedback from the course was: "Amazing facilitator- makes course while ensuring we get there" "Thank you for inspiring me to go and achieve more for my-self" "Kim is so supportive and a taskmaker but in a really nice way :) hardworking and bubbly" Well done Kim—Bendigedig!!

Employee Forum Update With some of our colleague moving on to pastures new and others going on maternity leave there have been some changes in forum reps across the offices. You reps are: Anchor Court—Jane Nyhan & Deb Dennehy Treforest—Karen Neill and Elin Davies Llanelli—Gemma Littlejohns & Kay Hughes Colwyn Bay—Mair Rowlands & Jane Hartley

The next meeting of the Employee Forum will take place on the 31st July 2013. Remember this forum is your opportunity to have your say and get involved.

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Green Feature Green Dragon Update I am pleased to be able to tell you all that we successfully reapplied for the Level 2 Green Dragon award earlier this year— Go us!!

There are a number of recommendations coming out from the report which me and the Green Champions will be looking at implementing over the next few months.

So watch this space!!!

A quick reminder of who your Green Champions are: Anchor Court—Tash Davies Llanelli—Lucy Rees Colwyn Bay—Mair Rowlands Treforest—Anne Williams

Why not make the most of the warm, summer weather and walk, cycle or use public transport to get to work once a week to lower your carbon footprint?

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Tash’s Cocktail Corner Paloma Watermelon Martini (serves 2)

50 ml tequila 27.5 ml Pink Grapefruit Juice 20ml sugar syrup

1 cup watermelon juice

10 ml lime juice

1/2 cup vodka 1/4 cup sugar syrup

Pour all of the ingredients into a tall glass and fill with ice. Stir well.

Juice 1 lime Ice Place the watermelon juice, vodka, lime juice and sugar syrup into a cocktail shaker.

Top with ice and soda for a bit of fizz.

Top with ice and shake well.

Strain into martini glasses and enjoy!

Watermelon Cooler Slushy 4 cubes seedless watermelon 10 ice cubes 1/3 cup lime juice 1/4 cup white sugar Pinch salt

Place all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth for a refreshing summer drink!

Please enjoy these drinks responsibly 15

Announcements Happy Birthday to everyone that has celebrated their birthday over the past few months—Penblwydd Hapus!!

It’s been a month for weddings with both Jenni and Teresa tying the knot. Congratulations!!!

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Announcements We have welcomed a number of new members to the team since the last issue of Enfys:

Laura Hancock—Regional Project Coordinator Llanelli Faye Parsons—Project Administrator Llanelli Laura Davies—Project Development Coordinator Sally Knock—Regional Trainer

We also look forward to welcoming Catherine Gate and Suzy Cook to the Treforest office and Jo Ashburner to the Llanelli office. And also a big congratulations to Nicole on her secondment to the role of Business Support Officer.

We’ve waved goodbye to a number of colleagues this last quarter. Best wishes to Susie, Carol, Emma Thomas and Ben Hughes!!

Both Laura and Ellie have welcomed new additions to their families. Meet Emma Luisa McKeown and Deryn!! Congratulations to you both.

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Summer Recipes Mango and red onion salsa 1 large Mango I red onion Juice of an orange Bunch of fresh coriander (chopped) Peel and chop red onion, peel and dice mango and combine with coriander and the orange juice.

Cloudy Lemonade

Mix lemon juice and sugar with soda water and pour over ice for a refreshing summer treat!

Honey Nut Ice-cream

1.

Pre heat oven to Gas mark 3/ 160C

50g hazelnuts

2.

Spread nuts on a baking tray and toast until golden (approx. 10 mins)).

Rub the skins form the nuts using a tea towel and coarsely chop.

3.

Line a baking tray with foil and spread chopped nuts evenly. Melt the chocolate and drizzle evenly over the nuts. Place in the freezer until firm. Once firm break into bit-size chunks.

350ml double cream

4.

Line a 20cm square tin with foil.

1 tsp vanilla extract

5.

In a small bowl beat the egg yolks until light yellow. Beat in the honey.

6.

In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff. In a third bowl beat the cream with vanilla until stiff.

7.

Fold the cream into the egg whites, then fold the egg yolk into the cream mixture. Fold in the nuts and pour into prepared tin.

8.

Freeze for 8 hours until firm.

125g plain chocolate 4 eggs, separated 125g honey

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Dates for your Diary 4th August—Friendship Day 7th August—Ramadan ends 8th August—Eid-ul-Fitr 12th August—International Youth Day 13th August—Left Handers Day 31st August—Bacon Day 15th September—Agatha Christie Week begins 16th September—National Cupcake week begins 19th September—International Talk like a Pirate Day 20th September—Jeans for Genes Day 21st September—British Food fortnight begins 23rd September—National Work Life Week begins 26th September—European Day of Languages

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Last but not least‌.

A big thank you to everyone who has contributed to Enfys.

The next edition of Enfys is scheduled for October.

Have a great Summer!!!

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