Women's Business Magazine Spring 2016 by Women's Business Club

Spring 2016 £2.99

FASHION

FOOD

Caryl Hodgson

The Healthy Girl Is your food ageing you?

Breaking barriers - When age and money just aren’t enough

Recipe King Prawns with Lemongrass & Coconut

STORIES

Shotgun and Chelsea Bun Club Victoria Knowles-Lacks

Empowering women of all ages, shapes, backgrounds and abilities

Woman Behind The Business How crisis can build business Woman In A Man’s World Dancing with spitfires

FINANCE

Implications of changing from being self employed to trading through a limited company

SOCIAL

Exciting news from our members! Babies, Awards and Magazine interviews

Empowering, Equipping and Inspiring women executives and entrepreneurs

Women’s Business Magazine

Editor-in-Chief Angela De Souza

Creative Director Lorah-Kelly Beard

Welcome Letter

Copy Editor Eric De Souza

Advert Editor Samuel Beard

Life is full of opportunities and potential as well as problems and disappointments. Decide now, before anything hits the fan, to find a way to turn all problems into opportunities - probletunities we should call them! You see, stuff happens in business and in life. At times there is little control that you or I have over the ‘stuff’ that comes our way. What we do have control over is what we do with the stuff! So shall we agree together to make this year the best year ever by dealing with problems and disappointments positively and to enjoy the successes humbly? In fact, why don’t you write our special word probletunities somewhere where you will see it often, so that you remember to see things differently for the rest of the year. In this issue we have some amazing stories of women who have done just this. Read about how Tricia and Caryl embraced thier probletunities. We would love to hear from you too, please get in touch with your story.

hello@womensbusiness.club

Angela De Souza

twitter.com/wombizclub facebook.com/wombizclub Women’s Business Magazine - Print and Online FOUR EDITIONS DELIVERED TO: Bath | Bristol | Cheltenham| Kingston | Monmouth | Southampton | Swindon www.womensbusiness.club (c) 2015 Women’s Business Club All images and text subject to copyright. You may NOT reproduce, in whole or in part, any of the pages from this magazine or quotes of no more than two or three sentences with full credit attached to quote. If you wish to reproduce more than this, please contact the editor-in-chief. While endeavouring to make sure that all published information is accurate, the publishers cannot be held responsible for mistakes or omissions. The Women’s Business Club cannot be held responsible for any errors or omissions or endorse companies, products or services that appear in this magazine.

Table of

Contents

FEATU R E D STO R I E S

Shotgun & Chelsea Bun Club Victoria Knowles-Lacks |Page 04

Woman in a Man’s World Molly Rose |Page 16

Woman Behind the Business Tricia Hamilton |Page 60

B U S I N E S S FAS H I O N

Breaking barriers; When age and money just aren’t enough. |Page 10

SoSensational: The shopping site for grown up women |Page 12

How To Wear A Hat|Page 14

FEATU R E D ARTI C LE S

Ask The

Expert Business Office |Page 08

Social News |Page 26

Music Business |Page 44

Ask The Expert |Page 09

Education |Page 32

Business Growth |Page 46

Finance |Page 20

Social Media |Page 34

Health |Page 50

Food & Recipes |Page 24

Creative Business |Page 36

Directory |Page 61

Shotgun and Chelsea Bun Club Seriously social clay shooting events for ladies.

Victoria Knowles-Lacks has a vision - she wants to empower women, by bringing ladies of all ages, shapes, backgrounds and abilities together. She has worked hard on creating the largest, all girl shooting community.

What is the Shotgun and Chelsea Bun Club? The Shotgun and Chelsea Bun Club is the UK’s largest ladies shooting club. I am big into shooting, I shoot game and clays. I love the whole huntress thing - shooting the pheasants, preparing them and eating them and that kind of thing. Shooting had interested me for some time but none of my girl friends were into it so I took four girlfriends clay shooting in September 2011 and they loved it. From there it turned into the huge social and networking club around the country.

How did it go from your four girlfriends to what it is today? It just kinda happened! I put on three or four events and just threw everything at it that I could. I have no background in business at all. I emailed local women in the area like business clubs, the WI, pony clubs and other groups of women then offered them a discount just to try get them along. Then it just grew and grew. I do a lot of social media, run competitions and promotions. I would team up with local farmers, clubs and various people by sending them a really nice email asking if they would put our events up on their website and in return I would offer them a discount. I didn’t make any profit out of it, it was more about building a presence. I am really lucky to have received a lot of support from shooting organisations and people who just believe in me and are just getting behind me.

What did you do before the Shotgun and Chelsea Bun Club? I studied fashion at university in London. I left London and then went to Australia for two years, rode horses as a jillaroo chasing cattle. I moved back to Worcestershire and worked for Knight Frank but got made redundant. Then I moved onto working for a housing association but just hated that. I always felt quite entrepreneurial but never quite knew what to do. The Shotgun and Chelsea Bun Club was just a hobby that grew into what it is today. We have already brought 8,000 women into clay shooting. We have got our own tweed line.

How does the club work? Someone called us the WI with guns. We have all ages, from nine years old to late seventies and over attending our seventy plus events across the country. Shooting experience isn’t necessary, you can just turn up and we will provide you with a gun and a coach. Most of the women bring a cake along for us to enjoy together when the shooting is over. I have a lovely collection of tea cups and tea pots and we have a proper tea part.

How did you come up with the name? At first I was going to call it the Game Bird Shooting Club but thought it was a bit cliché and I didn’t want everyone to think that we were ‘game’ - you know, easy women! I also didn’t want to put vegetarians off. I knew it needed a punchy name and punchy logo, so wrote this really, really long list and eventually settled on the Shotgun and Chelsea Bun Club. I thought Chelsea was genius as it’s quite aspirational and now everyone calls us the Chelsea Gun Club which is fine by me.

How did the Shotgun and Chelsea Bun Club go from a hobby to a business? I started with a blog called Lady Shooting where I would write about all the big estates I had been too or the lovely new jacket I got and so would review stuff. Then I had this Twitter account, @ LadiesShooting, which is still going and has nearly 7,000 followers but I never do anything with it which is a shame really. It was this Twitter account that really helped me get going. After the first event in September 2011 I used this Twitter account to see who else was interested and where they were based. So would ask for example, who is in Derbyshire that might like to join us for a shoot. I have been quite relentless, I work about 100 hours a week. Social media for me is the key. While I was still working fulltime I used to get up at 4am every morning to stay on top of things. I quit my day job in June 2012.

How did your tweed line come about? I did a collaboration with a tweed clothing company where I did a bit of consulting for them in social media by sharing what had worked for me. Everything just snowballed from there and since I studied fashion and spend most of time in tweed it made sense.

What does it cost to get involved with the Shotgun and Chelsea Bun Club? Membership is £70 each year which gives you £10 off every shoot of £49.50. You also get access to our secret Facebook group and to the Chelsea Bun Club Sisterhood which is a mentoring scheme where we partner women new to shooting with more experienced women. They also get a badge and a discount book. 27th June last year I thought we should try a national shooting day and we had over a thousand ladies booked in! Aside from our usual events we do training days too, novice pheasant days and socials.

How do you manage all these events and ladies?

I do half of the events and then I have some trusted ladies that do the others for me around the country. I am really lucky to be surrounded by such lovely, kind, helpful women.

Describe a typical Shotgun and Chelsea Bun Club member. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really varied. For instance we have a really solid community of slightly older women with children, many of whom are farmers. We also have many younger ladies and then around London we have many city girls. The idea was to create a club that I would feel comfortable going to so we are a really fun club where everyone is welcome.

Do you have any failures that you have learned from? Yes, plenty! I think getting a bit too big for my boots too early on was a bit of a failure. I got far too ambitious too early on without being fully prepared and didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t think things through. I was just thinking that the going was good so I would easily be able to maintain that level of success. It was actually really good for me to go through that because now I am a lot more organised. I have a strategy now and am not just winging it anymore.

www.shotgunandchelseabunclub.co.uk facebook.com/TheShotgunAndChelseaBunClub twitter.com/chelseabunclub

Take a Peek Into...

Pink&Green Handmade Natural Skincare

A Day In the Office... There’s so much more to creating a skincare product than coming up with a formulation. In fact, sometimes I think that is the easy bit. I split my day into chunks. The things I find more challenging I do first. I have a form that I fill out each evening that has a task at the top which I must do before anything else. Often, that is phoning a new company to introduce myself to.

There are things I want to put off in favour of others. Apart from making the sales calls, which is usually a top priority (but I want to put off), I don’t like form filling. With skincare products there is a lot of form filling. So, that is high on my list. These are Product Information Files that are required to keep track of all the ingredients and then, those ingredients in the products, then those products numbered with a batch number. We work on-line with a lot of retailers who stock our products. I spend some time each day checking stock levels, responding to e-mails and ensuring they have all they need. I also check the shops and salons too for any responses they may need or orders they wish to place. Very early in the morning (Tuesday-Thursday) I fulfil any overnight orders and write my blogs and catch up on reading, webinars etc before everyone is waking up for the day. I find it a great use of time for this sort of thing, with a cup of my favourite tea.

Then it is split into other tasks and responses required to e-mails/phone calls. At the end of each day, I create a new list, with the fresh “most important task to do” at the top ready for the next day. I find it focuses the mind and means you are up and running much quicker each day.

Ask The Expert Sofia Says: Last year Facebook has changed the contest/ giveaways rules and I’m afraid now you can’t ask people from their personal profiles to SHARE the contest to collect entries. Facebook does not permit that and they can actually delete that post from your page. Here is some guidelines on promotions : www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php What you can do to collect entries is ask people to: - Like or comment on a post on your Page (ex: “Like this post to enter”) - Publish to your Page - Send your Page a message

In this issue we are chatting with our “No Limits” Social Media Strategist Sofia Pacifico Reis from Increase Your Social Reach. Wendy Murphy Asks: Hi Sofia. I know I might sound like an echo, but at the moment I have a free giveaway going on both on here and my own page WMMdesigns. Over 2000 views of the post have only resulted in around 26 comments and shares. I don’t understand... am I wording it incorrectly? I thought I was quite clear comment and share and stand a chance of winning a sterling silver hand made bead (which are beautiful if I say so myself (and many others do too). Angela suggested I broadcast it further and wider, but if 2000 people have seen it, why aren’t they going for it? Everyone likes jewellery don’t they? thanks!

So for example you could ask people what WORD would they have on their pendants and add that to the comments and like as well. Ask a question to engage them into responding and interaction. A page timeline contest can only request likes and comments and then select a winner at random from that list (that is if you are not using a 3rd part app to run the contest). You can reword it: Like our page and tell us why you would like to have this pendant to WIN it. Keep it simple, straight to the point and you can have this written on the actual image with your branded logo (so if goes viral “sharing” it will always be a trademark of your biz.) As it is you are lucky that Facebook hasn’t taken it out. And views is just the amount of people that has seen it but not action on it because they are not interested. www.increaseyoursocialreach.com

FA S H I O N CARYL HODGSON Bath entreprenuer Caryl Hodgson tells her story of riches to rags and back to riches! An incredible story of going from surviving to thriving. At the age of 50 I found myself looking for a job whilst simultaneously trying to start a new business, because we literally had the rug pulled from under our feet when my husband’s business suffered badly as a result of the recent economic meltdown. We had to sell the family home and virtually start again. It’s a real eye opener how many prejudices there are against the ‘fifty-somethings’ in our world of business and innovation. A wealth of experience in marketing, sales and even the new media age, having run my own new media and web agency for more than 10 years did not help and it proved hugely difficult to find well paid work no matter how well qualified one was.

Interestingly – the funding and business start up loan market is exactly the same about age! That surprised me, you’d think all that experience and a good head on your shoulders would count for an awful lot – but virtually all the funding available is for ‘young entrepreneurs’ and under 35 start-ups and mostly in the hands of middle aged men decision makers. But that’s a whole separate research project and article I think! Suffice to say it was time to pull something out of the bag! So I started my business EZZA initially in response to this set of circumstances but, having had some year’s experience in both on and off line

makers in the UK, Italy and Denmark. I hand pick small ranges each season that meet the needs of most women, (and now messengers for men also,) with a range of work bags, fashion bags, cross bodies, handmade silk scarves, jewellery, gloves and belts. All the products are handmade in limited quantities; some are unique pieces – and all with realistic affordable price tags. Each collection has a story and is something you won’t find flooding the high street. In many cases these are new designers to whom I’m able to give a platform to launch their products to the world, which has been a really pleasing development. “I like to say that I have put together small collections throughout the year that are about stylish arm candy – but without the eye watering price tag!” Ezza proudly provides affordable luxury for women who need to carry important things around in quality bags. fashion accessories clients at my agency. I had met some fabulous artisan leather manufacturers whilst working on another project and had seen the quality of their work and the fact that what was produced was beautiful and yet not well known. I could see the gap in the market for an offering to grown up, sensible women with taste and a bit of hard earned cash, who wanted stylish and well made bags and accessories, but who did not want to pay over the odds because of a badge or logo. In most cases, having paid for these expensive ‘designer’ bags you then find that so many have exactly the same thing– or worse still, a cheaper fake that looks just as good! I started with a £500 loan from a girlfriend and two evenings at home showing a small collection of samples to friends and their friends, from which I took forward orders, made for them and we had our first collection! I now have a boutique in Bath in the beautiful Milsom Place selling small collections from independent designers and

www.EZZA.co.uk info@ezza.co.uk | +441225470048 13 Milsom Place, Bath BA1 1BZ CALLING ALL BUSINESS WOMEN! YOU CAN SUPPORT CARYL & EZZA IN HER QUEST TO RAISE FUNDS FOR GROWTH ON THE CROWD FUNDING PLATFORM INDIEGOGO www.igg.me/at/EZZA-boutique

From SoSensational The shopping site for grown up women Working the season’s trends, for 9-to-5. Do you ever read about the season’s trends and think to yourself, “Fabulous, but not suitable for business.” At SoSensational we totally get that not all trends work for business life, but on the other hand, failing to incorporate at least a few trends into your working wardrobe can leave you frozen in a bygone era, which is not good for anyone’s image. So, here is a quick rundown of S/S16’s key trends, with some pointers to adapting them to a business environment. Key trends for S/S16 include: pleats; luxe trainers; the cold shoulder; orange; piecrust frills; and stripes. For the upcoming season, pleats are the very fine kind, sometimes called sunray or concertina. A pleated skirt in a neutral colour could easily be inserted into a working wardrobe, teamed with a tailored blazer and a simple top. To keep this look on trend, style it for work (or, for that matter, for off-duty wear) with flat shoes, such as dark plimsolls or brogues. Luxe trainers translate as trainers in gold, silver or other metallics or in multi-coloured leather. This is one trend to leave for weekends. However, a pair of plain trainers in black or another neutral shade, looks great with ankle-grazer trousers or a midi or maxi and is a cool nod to this trend.

The Cold Shoulder arrived in winter and was an instant hit in oversized jumpers with cut-outs at the shoulders. The Cold Shoulder is back for S/S16 as a lightweight top or tee. At SoSensational we feel a Cold Shoulder can work in an office or business environment if it stays hidden under a tailored blazer. That makes a Cold Shoulder top a good investment: wear it under a jacket for work and bare those shoulders for off-duty wear. Orange has been an important fashion colour for several seasons and is S/S16’s most on-trend bright. But orange is not a shade which flatters everyone, nor is head-to-toe orange entirely suited to a business environment, any more than fuchsiapink or baby-blue would be. So, demonstrate your fashion savvy by wearing orange as an accent shade – a top or blouse in orange worn with neutral jacket-and-skirt/trousers combo OR as a bold accessory (bag, shoes, statement necklace or scarf). Piecrust frills turned up everywhere as the tail-end of the 1970s trend. If you like frills go for it; tuck a frilled blouse under a blazer or jacket. If you hate frills, this is one trend you can afford to ignore. Stripes are again strong for S/S16. Most of the stripes on the catwalks were bold. But stripes easily adapt to a work environment. A striped shirt in pastel or dark tones can work under a blazer while a monochrome striped dress or skirt worn with a plain blazer or dark coatigan, makes a strong S/S statement and is perfect for business wear. Written by Jan & Cyndy

All products pictured are available from www.sosensational.co.uk

Join us for a brighter future. Are you looking for a more flexible way of working, that can give you the lifestyle you have always dreamed of? 40 minutes of your time is all that is needed to change your life! Talk to me to find out more.

Health, Rewards & Happiness Forever Living Products from Carolyn Henderson

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H OW TO WEAR A HAT Hat maker Tricia Hamilton shares some top tips on ‘How To Wear A Hat’. Tricia is an exciting designer specialising in bespoke fascinators, hats and other accessories to suit your needs and special occasions.

When is a hat, more than a hat? A hat makes a statement. It creates a new silhouette for you. This gives your exterior identity a special image. In order to work, it needs to align your inner personality. This interface can leave people with mixed emotions towards the headwear in question. Everyone can wear a hat or fascinator. The hard part is to find the one that adds to our appearance. Most of us try on a hat as we walk past it in a department store. In ten seconds, we decline the object perched on our head. So often this is repeated throughout our lives and we decide that hats don’t suit us. I will take through the steps to dispel these beliefs and guide you towards a clear goal.

Colour is key. As with clothes, certain colours work for our skin tone, hair colour and body image. When we find the exact shade, our search is moving in a precise direction. A hat offers an opportunity to change our silhouette with a dramatic shape. The next consideration is the shape of the hat or head piece. Only one head shape suits a hat. One in five of the population have oval heads with symmetric faces. These are our friends that suit hats. The rest of us have to to create a unique position for our hat at the best angle for our shape and size. Most heads suit an asymmetric look. Facets of a headpiece can be found on close inspection. Every element reflects an eye for detail. A flourish of feathers, beads bursting like fireworks, twists and turns in a fabric all add drama to a piece. Do not underestimate the effect of this in the overall picture. A Bespoke Hat is so much more than it sounds. These creations reflect thought and style from the wearer. A planned image is the goal. Each feature is chosen to make up the whole image and compliment the customer’s ideas.

Owning a hat or fascinator is not the end of the story. Combining your outfit with your hat is a skill. I suggest looking at your planned combination in daylight as the colours need to match or tone. Pigments can vary. True light is the best time to reflect on your choices. I advise that you get out your shoes and handbag too. A strong contrast is better than a poor match in my opinion.

Now you have everything at your fingertips. The hat will need to be ‘worked’. Remember only a small number of people can just put the hat on straight on their heads and it looks good. The rest of us can wear our hats at an angle, tipped or moved to that place on our heads that is ‘just right’, showing that the wearer is in charge of their image. Remember, ‘If the hat fits.....’ think about your next step, enjoy wearing your unique hat for that special occasion. Tricia Designs has a wide variety of hats and Fascinators in stock and can take orders over the phone or via Skype. A number of pieces have already been bought for Cheltenham Ladies Day. Photography by Sue Barclay www.barclayphotography.biz/cms

WWW.TRICIADESIGNS.COM info@triciadesigns.com | 07826333103

A Woman In a Man’s World.

This month saw a special lunchtime meeting, with the wonderful Molly Rose giving a fascinating talk to our members in ‘Dancing with Spitfires’, at Marsh Farm Hotel, Royal Wootton Bassett. Molly, now aged 95, is a veteran of the WW2 Air Transport Auxiliary.

An Early Start I was born in 1920 into a family, the seventh of eight children. There’s something special about the seventh in the family – they always get special treatment. The eldest was my brother. He was seventeen years older than me, so anything that he did was pretty special, as you can imagine. Even more so because the next down were six sisters, and I was the fifth of the six, so this brother of seventeen years older, anything he did I thought was tremendously special, and I think he was, actually. When he came down from university, he learnt to fly. The first aircraft that came into our lives was a Tiger Moth, which was tethered in the field behind our home, just outside Cambridge. On occasions, if he was going somewhere that he didn’t mind taking a small sister of eight or nine, he would say, ‘Do you want to jump in?’ and of course I hadn’t got suitable clothing on, but you didn’t rush in for a cardigan if the brother was already getting into the aircraft; you’d better climb in quickly, or you’d get left behind. And so I had some very cold flights in the Tiger Moth as a little girl, but it didn’t put me off flying.

Fledgling Wings When I was sixteen, my father said, ‘Do you want to learn to fly?’ So I said, ‘Yes, of course,’ and he

arranged for me to have lessons. I was learning to fly when I went off to school in Paris for a year. When I came home in the holidays, I got my flying licence, only a matter of three months after I’d got my driving licence. But you don’t amass a lot of hours flying; you take far longer getting into the thing and getting out of it than you do actually flying it! When I came back from school, there was the question of work. I had thought that I would housekeep for my father and have a lovely time in Cambridge. But he was really a very wise man. My mother had died when I was just ten, and my youngest sister was only three, so he was left with all these children. He was very much in charge of us all and in those days if a parent had ideas about things, you fell in with it pretty quickly. Anyway, he obviously didn’t reckon on my ability as a housekeeper. In fact, he got a very efficient housekeeper, whom I promptly and intensely disliked. So he said, ‘If you want to go on flying, Molly, would it be a good idea to know how planes work?’ I thought about it overnight and decided that actually it would be a very good way of getting out of the house with this housekeeper that I didn’t like. I came down the following morning and said, ‘I think that’s a very good idea.’ He replied, very promptly, ‘Well, I’ve got the overalls, you’ll go in at 8 o’clock next Monday.’ And so up to the aerodrome I went at 8 o’clock the following Monday, the only woman working on the hanger floor.

The chaps were extraordinarily good to me. If there was a screw that I couldn’t budge, there was always someone around that would give it a whack and hand the screwdriver back again. I appreciated this enormously, but equally, thank God, I’ve always had a sense of humour. There was one moment when I was re-wiring a Tiger Moth and I was bent double into the cockpit, and I had a great wallop on the behind, so I climbed out of the aircraft and looked around. Nobody could be seen anywhere, so I just laughed and got on with it. I think if I’d been tiresome about it, they probably wouldn’t have wanted me to help me at all. Time went on. I was married when I was just nineteen, and for six months before my husband went into the army, we were in Oxford. Then he was called up and I went back to Cambridge and got on with my engineering. It was the beginning of ’42. My father had died when my husband was on embarkation leave, and so my life had really fallen apart to a very great degree. I found amongst the letters of condolence a letter from ATA asking whether I would be interested in joining them. I grasped this as a wonderful opportunity to do something that was going to be interesting and so I agreed. Within three weeks I was at Luton, ferrying aircraft.

High Flyers At the beginning of the war we were totally unequipped for what came and there were people who knew that we were absolutely in no position to wage war on anybody. When it all happened, there was a chap called d’Erlanger, who was a director of BOAC. He realised that we were going to run straight into problems and wrote to the Air Minister, saying that he thought the weekend flyers could be useful. There were a lot of flying clubs around at that time, and people were beginning to get interested in it. D’Erlanger thought that they could be used by the Air Ministry to ferry important people about or carry spares. It wasn’t until August, before war was declared in September, that they finally said to d’Erlanger, ‘Recruit your first 40 chaps.’ And so the first 40 were taken on board. There was a woman called Pauline Gower, who was the daughter of an MP and she knew d’Erlanger very well. She had done a lot of flying and she pinned him down one day and said, ‘Look, why don’t you have women in this?’ and he agreed. So she then said to her father, ‘I think this ought to go ahead. There are quite a lot of women who’ve done a good deal of flying and they can perfectly well do this.’

The Air Force, of course, weren’t so welcoming! The idea that they were going to have women flying their aircraft didn’t please them at all. But Pauline recruited the first lot. One was a grandmother, there were several who were late on in their lives but had done quite a lot of flying and there was one girl of nineteen. She was quite the youngest of the lot, only 5’ 3” and tried to pretend that she was much taller than she was. The age variation was terrific. They were recruited in January 1940, ferrying single-seater aircraft in the bitter cold. But of course, being women, they decided, this was a job they were doing and so they jolly well got on with it. Pauline was able to recruit more as time went on, but it was d’Erlanger who got them in, flying all sorts of aircraft, although the women were confined to very light, single-seater fighters, and not even those to begin with. It was early in 1942 that one of the number was given a Hurricane to fly and she, having managed it perfectly well, gave a thumbs-up when she came down and hence all the girls were allowed to fly single-seater fighters. People are always amazed that we flew so many different types of aircraft with such little training. But I’m sure most of you are car drivers, and provided you know what makes a machine work, you’re away.

The Sky’s The Limit The first Hurricane I ever had, I was very excited about, of course, and so I took off and once you were up, you were absolutely in charge because there were no flight lanes and designated heights in those days. Once you were up, the sky was the limit, and so you really could do what you liked. Then of course the realisation came that you had had to land the damned thing, and that’s a different story. Because you really needed this little book, one that we used to take with us everywhere. You got the aircraft that you were flying and put that page in the top of your flying boot and it told you what speed to come in to land, because that did vary a bit. Thankfully, it all worked and I did a reasonable landing, and so then I was ferrying all the single-seater fighters. By the time I joined ATA in ’42, they had a very good system of training, reckoning that they kept your interest much more if you did a variety of things. So when you had done a certain amount of ferrying of the single-seaters, you went back into school and had a session on an Oxford, and that opened up the Oxford and Anson and that group of twinengines. And when you had ferried those for a while, you then had a session on a Hudson, which was a heavy twin-engine aircraft, the only aircraft that I flew where you had to have an engineer with you, because the pilot couldn’t reach the landing gear from the cockpit. All very important stuff! You were then designated to a ferry pool. I was designated to Hamble, where they had one

of the three women ferry pools in ATA. It was an interesting pool. There were about 30 pilots and about eleven or twelve different nationalities. We had one from Chile, and another girl from the Argentine and the Chilean one didn’t speak English when she arrived, but was a very experienced instructor. She started ferrying, but on about the third or fourth day she had a forced landing near Hendon, and when the police arrived they couldn’t understand how this woman who couldn’t speak any English was ferrying a British aircraft, so she was taken to the police station. It took 24 hours for ATA to get in touch with her and haul her back to Hamble. So they decided she’d better learn some English and put her to work in the hanger. She certainly learned some English there! All sorts of words I had never heard! But if ever I end up saying, ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ I know it’s straight from chile!

A Safe Landing My son once asked his godmother how many aircraft she’d flown, and she, having been one of the four engine pilots in ATA, replied, ‘Oh, 85.’ He then said, ‘Mother only flew 38. Why did she fly so few?’ and Philippa said, ‘Oh, she was just lazy!’ And I promptly said, ‘You were in the whole thing far longer than me, dear!’ But when anyone says ‘Did you enjoy it?’ you couldn’t enjoy things in those days, because my we were at the age when all our contemporaries were fighting in one way or another and whatever you felt about it, there was always that terrible sadness of losing so many of your friends. We were both incredibly lucky.

Kay Rumball

Joan Rumball

S iSter , n ov 2010,

m um , 74

died in

aged

Marion Warrior

loSt her life to an aggreSSive cancer within weekS of diagnoSiS . never had the chance to marry the love of her life or have children . kind in heart and generouS in nature .

died currently in palliative care after three yearS battling the Same aggreSSive cancer that killed kay . five children , Six grandchildren , two great grandchildren . createS the moSt beautiful occaSion cakeS . alwayS putS otherS firSt . married 55 yearS to my dad . i hope She iS Still with uS by the time thiS iS publiShed .

m other - in - law , d ec 2015 aged 84

Suffered five long yearS of painful illneSSeS . mother to three daughterS , grandmother and great grandmother to Seven . SharpeSt wit and mind . the only perSon i knew who could complete the telegraph cryptic croSSword everyday .

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FINANCE Implications of changing from being Self Employed to trading through a Limited Company. If you have set up your business as a sole trader, something you might be considering is whether or not you should change the business structure and trade through a limited company. There are several issues to think about and we have considered these below: Taxation Self Employment If you are self employed your business profits and other personal affairs are considered together for tax purposes. The profits of the business are added to any other income you may have and you then pay tax and National Insurance on the total income received in each tax year. Currently you will pay 50% of your annual tax liability in July each year with the other 50% being paid in January. As a Limited Company A limited company is a separate legal entity and therefore the profits made by the limited company will be subject to corporation tax. The company will be able to deduct the salary paid to the business owner as a tax deductible expense. The tax is paid nine months after the company’s year end. Typically, the business owner will take a small salary from the company to minimise exposure to National Insurance contributions and then take the remainder of their income by way of dividends. In the past these dividends have not been taxed unless you are a higher rate tax payer, but this will change from April this year with a new dividend tax on dividends over £5000. The shareholders will be taxed on the income they withdraw from the company plus any dividends over £5000. The business owners

may therefore be able to manage the timing of dividend payments in order to reduce personal tax liabilities or at least defer the payment of any personal tax. Even accounting for the new dividend tax, trading through a limited company will normally result in lower overall tax liabilities and this is the main reason why business owners might decide to trade as a limited company. Additionally, there is more flexibility in terms of timing of tax payments in trading through a limited company. VAT Your business will need to register for VAT if the annual turnover exceeds the VAT threshold which is currently £82,000. This applies whether you trade as a sole trader or a limited company. If you are thinking of transferring the trade to a limited company then it is under most circumstances possible to do this without any VAT implications and you can also keep the same VAT registration number. The rules on VAT can however be complex so you should certainly seek advice on the implications before becoming a limited company. Administration As a sole trader you are required to maintain proper accounting and financial records for your business and also you are required to submit your self assessment tax return each year. Trading as a limited company will require the same maintaining of accounting records but the directors of the company will have additional obligations.

The limited company will be required to submit accounts to the Registrar of Companies each year which will need to comply with the format prescribed in The Companies Act. In addition the company will need to submit a further Annual Return which identifies any changes to directorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s details, shareholders and other basic company information. The company will need to submit its own tax return to HMRC. The additional work will often be carried out by your accountant but this will inevitably result in higher costs than running the business as a sole trader. An abbreviated version of the accounts will also be available on the public record. Liability and credibility Your own personal liability could be significantly different if you trade through a limited company. If something goes wrong and the company has debts that it is unable to pay, the responsibility to pay the debts lies with the company and not the director. The directorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s liability is therefore limited to the investment that he or she has invested in the company.

As a sole trader, the owner of the business can be held personally responsible for the repayment of debts and the creditors can use your own personal assets to recover the debts. Your personal assets are not at risk if you trade as a limited company unless you have acted fraudulently when running the business. Additionally, business credibility can in some circumstances be enhanced when trading as a limited company. Clients may expect or even require you to trade as a limited company and some potential clients may not consider your tendering for work favourably if you do not trade as a limited company. Setting up a company Setting up and trading as a limited company in the UK is a relatively quick and inexpensive process. However, we would always suggest that you discuss this with your professional advisors beforehand. If you would like to discuss any of these issues then please feel free to contact us at any time.

Five Top Vision Tips 1. Computer use is not what our eyes are naturally designed for, so make it easier for them by giving your eyes regular breaks from focussing near to and look at something far away for a few seconds every few minutes. And because our blink rate goes right down when we’re concentrating on a screen, more so than with any other activity, our eyes can feel dry, so make a real effort to blink frequently, and drink plenty of water. 2. Have you had your children’s teeth checked by a dentist? Most parents are very conscientious about this once their children have enough teeth, and don’t wait for there to be a problem. But eyes are often neglected, and the child has to complain of not being able to see the board or of headaches before they are taken for an eye test. A youngster doesn’t need to be able to read to have their eyes examined, and all children should have a thorough check to rule out there being problems. Sometime during the year leading up to them starting school is a good time. 3. Never wear contact lenses swimming, unless they’re one day replacement ones which you take out and destroy straight afterwards. Even tap water, clean enough for most things, can contain Acanthoameba, which if left on the lens can seriously damage an eye, so keep water away from lenses completely. 4. Don’t smoke! Macular degeneration, which causes serious disturbance to the central vision we use when reading or looking at faces, is more common in people who smoke. And eat plenty of dark green vegetables to boost the lutein levels and help keep the maculae healthy. 5. Make sure you get your own eyes checked by an optometrist every two years, even if you don’t have any difficulties seeing. The eye examination is a good way of checking the health of the eyes, and of health in general because conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure may be picked up early.

FOOD

years ago, will be less toned and more flabbier. This is because they have lost vital muscle tissue, which is replaced with unsightly and unhealthy fat as their body composition changed. What’s more, this loss of muscle tissue can reduce our metabolisms functionality by nearly half! The sad fact is that although low calorie diets may help you lose weight on the scales, part of that weight is muscle tissue too. In fact up to 90% of the weight loss achieved on a low calorie diet is shown to be muscle tissue and not fat! This is disastrous for our health, and the reason why you gain back any weight lost once you return to normal eating. Plus that loss of muscle tissue will also have increased your rate of ageing too!

Is Your Food Ageing You? Did you know that there is research(1&2) to show that low calorie, starvation type diets actually make you fat? This is shocking to hear but sadly it’s true. Can you imagine how many people are putting a lot of effort into trying to eat less, depriving themselves while feeling hungry and miserable in the process? The knock on effects of low energy and brain fog can leave even the most determined amongst us, fed up and demotivated. You may well be one of them; I certainly was until I found a better way. You see, for the majority of our existence, we human beings have thrived on a completely natural diet. We ate meat, fish and seasonal vegetables along with fruit, nuts and seeds. It’s only in the last 60-70 years that we have eaten a diet of unnatural processed foods, containing sugars and chemicals. Our waistlines have expanded as dramatically as our ‘food choices’ and I do not believe in coincidences! It’s known that from the age of 25 to 30 we lose ½ lb of muscle tissue from the body every year. We are likely to lose up to 30% of our muscle tissue(3) over our lifetime. This is the reason why someone who weighs the same on the scales as they did many

You’ll be glad to learn that there is some good news, plus a scientific solution. To gain back and maintain lost muscle tissue, fire up your metabolism and rejuvenate your body. Aim to eat a diet free from processed foods and sugars. Eat plenty of fresh vegetables and berries, grass fed meat, wild caught fish, organic eggs and some healthy fats such as avocados, olives and coconut oil. This helps to restore your body so its functions as nature intends, enabling you to experience vibrant energy, a slimmer figure, increased mental clarity and feel younger as you grow older! I founded The Healthy Girl to demystify diets and educate people by revealing the truth behind weight loss and healthy ageing. I’m a qualified Nutritional Therapist and NLP Practitioner. I’m also trained in Psychotherapy & Counseling and have co-owned a Boutique Personal Training studio. I’ve overcome the pain and upset of Yo-Yo dieting myself and use the same specialised approach to help my clients to do the same. I have a passionate interest in the most effective approaches to weight loss, health and wellbeing and am currently working on my second book. I believe in making things easy and enjoyable for everyone. References 1. Schuler 2003, p50, Accu-Measure Inc. 1991. 2. Cook NJ, et al. 1987, Dohm GL, Tapscott EB, Kasperek GJ 1987, Lindholm C, et al. 1995, Maron MB, Horvath SM, Wilkerson JE 1975, Morville R, et al. 1979, Newmark ST, et al. 1976, tegelman R, et al. 1990, Tsai L, et al. 1991. 3. Faulkner JA, Brooks SV. Xerba E (1995), Lexell J (1995), Rogers MA. Evans WJ (1993).

www.thehealthygirl.co.uk | info@thehealthygirl.co.uk

King Prawns with Lemongrass & Coconut It’s great added to smoothies, yoghurt, and for all sorts of baking too. With only a minimum of ingredients you can create a unique and healthy dish that you get asked to make again and again!

This super-fast Thai inspired dish is healthy and really delivers on flavour. Lemongrass is believed to have many health benefits ranging from aiding digestion to relief from insomnia, respiratory disorders, fever, aches, infections and rheumatism. It’s pungent lemony flavour infuses the dish and gives a cooling effect to the chilli. Tiana Coconut Goodness is AMAZING! It’s raw coconut flesh rich in essential fatty acids, fibre, protein, lauric acid, iron, calcium and potassium. You can find it at: www.tiana-coconut.com/shop-1/

Recipe – serves 2 1 onion 1 lemongrass stalk finely chopped 3 teaspoons Tiana Coconut Goodness 100ml hot water ½ teaspoon chilli flakes 150g fresh organic king prawns Salt & pepper Method Sauté the onion and lemongrass in coconut oil, until translucent. Add the prawns and cook on both sides until they turn pink. Add the chilli flakes, salt and pepper, then the Tiana Coconut Goodness and hot water and allow to melt. Simmer gently until you have a sauce, add more water if required. Serve with brown rice or quinoa, a green salad with a sprinkling of fresh coriander or Thai basil. www.thehealthygirl.co.uk facebook.com/healthygirluk twitter.com/healthygirluk

SOCIAL Exciting News From Our Members!

Welcome Baby Emily Olivia Beard We are very pleased to announce the birth of our Creative Director’s little girl, Emily Olivia Beard! “As you have probaby noticed in photos lately, I have been a bit ‘rounder’ than usual! No it wasn’t just the cakes... But it was the start of a beautiful love story... On the 26th January 2016, at around 1.30 in the afternoon, I laid my very tired eyes on the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen! She was wrapped in a little bundle of blankets and hiding under a pink chunky knitted hat and she could fit right across my chest as I lay there in a little bit of a daze. It was my daughter!

And she was perfect :) We had just been through the longest 4 days of our life as I struggled through a long and tedious labour. What was supposed to be the simplest thing in the world decided it needed to try the complicated route! But such is life, what can we do but go with it and try and suck out every bit of joy we can. And so we did! And it was all so worth it when I heard the first cry of my baby girl through my sleep deprived, drugged up conciousness. Almost like a dream, but so very real. Welcome to the world little Emily! You are so very loved.” - Lorah-Kelly Beard

Pink&Green Skincare’s Founder WINS Another National Skincare Award. offer the opportunity for quality time and embrace self-worth. The business launched with five facial oils, oil cleanser and rose floral water – all created with organic ingredients. Today the brand includes a range of luxury body oils and bath oils. Soon to be launched will be a facial exfoliator and soothing face mask. A skincare range for men is also anticipated. The brand is being greeted enthusiastically by salon owners and therapists who wish to offer their clients signature facial treatments, using beautifully hand-crafted organic products. The business today is headed up by Founder, Carol Aplin, and Co-Founder, Steve Wells, supported by a team of advocates for the brand.

Only launched just over one year ago, Swindon based Pink&Green’s creator and founder, Carol Aplin, has won another national award. This time for her “Eye Love” night serum. From the hundreds of entries received in the “2016 New For” Janey Loves Awards, judges chose winners as the most exciting new products unleashed this year.

If you’d like to talk to Carol about the products or the value of using natural oils, please don’t hesitate to contact her using the information below! 0781 580 7775 www.pinkandgreenskincare.co.uk carol@pinkandgreenskincare.co.uk

Pink&Green Skincare won one of the prestigious “Janey Loves” National Platinum Awards in 2015, for their organic oil cleanser. Carol was voted “Best New Business for 2015” at the Maximise Women’s Conference at the Pittville Pump Rooms in Cheltenham, with the Women’s Business Club. The membership of the group (founded by Angela de Souza) is invaluable for the development of the business. Through the brand, Pink&Green, sets out to encourage you to remind yourself you are special;

Our Very Own Quality Management Expert Is Featured in Quality World Magazine. Angela Fumpson has been a member of the Women’s Business Club now for over a year and has really become a major part of the company! Not only is she the mentor and trainer for our Bath and Bristol clubs, but she has also been writing for the Women’s Business Magazine right from the start as our Quality Management expert (see page 46).

“The Chartered Quality Institute is the chartered body for quality management professionals, established in 1919 it gained a Royal Charter in 2006. The CQI has a comprehensive branch network throughout the UK plus three overseas branches. Branches meet regularly for talks, seminars and visits to local enterprises.

We were so pleased to hear that we have not been the only magazine to take an interest in what Angela has to say! Not to long ago, she has been featured in a top quality magazine that she herself has been subscribed to for 23 years. Well done Angela!

gain expert knowledge to build a strong community.

I used networking and social media to build up my own company and I have used the same strategy and contacts to revamp the Avon branch. We needed to get our profile out there and spread the word. Sometimes individuals can become isolated in their roles and it helps to have conversations with like-minded people to find solutions. Networking is important as it builds community and relationships and promotes business through referrals that may not have ordinarily have happened. Most quality professionals in the South West are facing the challenge of auditing, interpreting and integrating ISO 9001:2015 and this has been the focus for the Avon branch – we are getting good feedback on what our members want. It was hard finding a good source of support and education in Bristol without the Avon branch.

your capabilities without the need to sell. Attend branches regularly, have a proactive approach to meeting new people and create a strategy for what you want from your networking.

Quality World is the UK’s leading independent quality publication to which I have received since the start of my career 23 years ago. It has more that 34,000 readers and is posted directly to the CQI members and external subscribers. I am thrilled to be recognised for my contribution and to be in a magazine that I have read for so many years.”

I continue my professional development by attending a lot of seminars and courses. I love to read, so business books and articles are a great source of knowledge. It’s important to have a plan for CPD so you can focus your time on delivering your personal goal. One of the biggest challenges in this country is stepping up the profile of the quality profession – we need the media behind us. The profession should be influencing strategy, because our work is wide reaching and holistic. To do this successfully we need to speak the language of the boardroom.

More…

For more on the CQI Avon branch, visit:

thecqi.org/branches

You can find out more about The Chartered Quality Institute at: Image: Christopher Jones

5 minutes with…

I am currently the Chair of the Avon branch, represent the South West and sit on the Advisory council to the CQI. When I took on the chair role in June 2015 the branch was dormant and not running many events, after a re-launch I have grown the branch to have regular events with 30-40 people subscribing for attendance. This has gained attention Angela Fumpson, CQP MCQI, Chair of the from the Institute which led CQI Avon branch and Director and Founder to the interview request. of White Tiger Quality Management and The theme for January Business Improvement was trailblazers and they The most effective For 2016, I would like wanted to ask how I networking is about to see the Avon branch relationship building, giving as a centre of excellence in managed to get the Branch and sharing ideas. When you Bristol. A place where you help people you are showing can network, share ideas and thriving again

www.thecqi.org

40 | Quality World | January 2016

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I Did It In My Pyjamas There is no recipe for business success. Too often I get asked about the rules …. but I honestly believe that there aren’t any rules. If we all followed the rules there would be no creativity, no innovation and no fun! So this book doesn’t tell you how to do it but simply my story of how I did it. Enjoy!

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EDUCATION HMSG leading the way with business-education partnerships.

Links between the business community and Haberdashers’ Monmouth School for Girls were further enhanced this month during the first Women’s Business Club networking lunch of 2016. Held at HMSG, the event saw local entrepreneurs and professionals from a range of companies visit the school, combining business with education and teaching pupils the power of networking. Emma Skipp, client account manager at Wye Media, attended the business lunch. She said: “I’ve been involved with the Women’s Business Club for quite a while. These events give pupils insight into networking and that’s not something you can teach in school, or even at university.” Tamsen Garrie, author of Act of Attraction, mentor and professional speaker, delivered a motivational speech about visualising your goals. The successful writer explained the importance of understanding why we set ourselves specific goals and outlined her three-step guideline to creating a vision: “You have to define what your intent is, define its purpose, and make it tangible,” Tamsen said. She closed with a powerful statement to the girls: “It’s vital to know why you want it – having a purpose is what gets you out of bed in the morning.” A level pupil Helena Sherwood, 17, studies business at HMSG, she said: “It was really inspirational listening to Tamsen. It made me want to set myself goals for the future. It has really motivated me to plan ahead a bit more.”

Joanna Johnson, Confidence4Life (C4L) Coordinator at HMSG said: “The business lunch was beneficial for all involved. It allowed the girls to gain important business skills which will stay with them for life whilst giving successful entrepreneurs a better understanding of young people’s ambitions.” Mel Cannon, proprietor of Perfect Image Health and Beauty Salon in Usk said: “The sixth formers give you a really good insight into what younger people want. I started my business at 18, 27 years ago, so roughly about the same age as these girls now. It is important to the girls to find something they really want to do rather than falling into something that’s not right.” Georgina Fry, 18, sixth former at HMSG and business and economics prefect said: “I felt like everything Tamsen said applied to my A levels as well as business. I could relate what she said to everyday life too. These events really help with developing social skills and confidence. We’re thrown into talking about business with people, which we’re not used to, and we’re learning these essential skills as we go along. This is my second women’s business event and I look forward to the next one.” We would like to thank Women’s Business Club for their continued links with the school and will be planning similar events in the future. To sign up for the next Women’s Business Lunch at HMSG on Wednesday 17th February, please go to: www.womensbusiness.club/calendar?mc_id=4099

HABERDASHERS’ MONMOUTH SCHOOL FOR GIRLS GIRLS 7 - 18 boarding from 7

Tel: 01600 711104

It’s official, we’re...

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ESTYN report published February 2016

Sector-leading practice and a passion for educational excellence have been recognised in Estyn’s glowing report on HMSG and its prep school, Inglefield House.

OPEN MORNING 7 May 2016 9.30am - 12.00 noon www.habs-monmouth.org Email: admissions@hmsg.co.uk 33 HMSG_A5_excellent.indd 1

15/03/2016 16:42:11

SOCIAL MEDIA What Does Planning Your Social Media & 60 Minute Makeover Have In Common? Hi I’m Sofia from Increase Your Social Reach and I’m your “No-Limits” Social Media Strategist. I help businesses leverage social media marketing and integrate it into their business goals and objectives. When you work with me, we’ll follow a 3 step system to reduce the overwhelm and time “suck”. Continue with us on a journey for the rest of the year to find out what planning your social media and 60 Minute Makeover has in common! In the last issue we looked at these points:

In the 60 minute Makeover, the designer finds out beforehand what type of person is going to live in that “space” and their likes and how they use the space that it’s going to be transformed. 4. What needs to be outsourced. You can’t do everything… right? Totally understand and you should focus on the tasks that only you know how to do them. Find out what you need to outsource, who is doing what and what tools will be needed for you to manage your social media channels? Equally in the 60 minute Makeover, What paint you will need? Wallpaper? What furniture is required? Can’t have a bedroom without a bed? 5. What needs to be done first.

2. Set Your End Goal for each social platform.

I would say that if you already have a presence on social media that the first thing to do is audit your social sites. Find out why you should audit your social sites and keep your business out of trouble.

So, let’s continue to look at the common parts between the two:

Can’t put a brand new carpet down without having the walls painted…

3. Know Your Audience.

That’s all we have time for in this issue! Make sure to get the next issue of the Women’s Business Magazine to continue on this journey.

1. Start with the WHY.

Do you know who your audience is? Have you created a ‘Persona’ for your marketing channels. When you identify this ‘Persona’, you will find the best marketing message that is going to resonate with them and turn them into advocates for your brand. What are their likes? Dislikes? Behaviours? Lifestyle?

www.increaseyoursocialreach.com

Flaxen Hare Designs - Home of Harriet Hare High on a hill near the Welsh borders in the Forest of Dean lives Laura Liddell, the creator of ‘Harriet Hare’, an innovative and exciting new character that teaches children how to knit. Laura launched Harriet Hare 18 months ago in response to being made redundant and just before her daughter, Harriet, went to University to study Fine art. Laura was well aware it was also a way to combat the empty nest syndrome that was looming. Could working with yarn be in her blood? Interestingly her Great Great Grandfather, William Horsfall, was the owner of Winters Mill, a spinning and weaving mill at Hebdon Bridge. The idea of Harriet Hare, a character to dress up with simple knitted garments just wouldn’t go away. “When I was little everyone knitted. It’s something you have to learn, like riding a bike or swimming. But once learned never forgotten” says Laura. So she decided it was time to revive the ancient skill again, after all hand knitting has almost lost a generation of know-how. Lets not lose another one, Laura thought. Kaffe Fassett (the international renowned textile artist) was delighted that another generation may be inspired to pick up the needles again and said ‘What a fabulous way to engage the next generation to learn to knit and to enjoy colour and pattern’ Kaffe enthuses.

creative crafting and imaginative play. Harriet Hare is quite the minx. She loves to be where the action is, thoroughly enjoying her time on stage with Seth Lakeman at Colston Hall, Bristol. She sat at his feet through the duration of the concert, guitar in hand and joining in with her favourite song ‘White Hare’. She even had a personal introduction to the whole auditorium before the song was sung. (see more: www.flaxenhare.co.uk/press/4589203203) Another time playing Jazz with Alex Steele at Minimize Women’s Business Awards. See more: www.flaxenhare.co.uk/blog/4584123988/_page/4 After Christmas Harriet’s friend Holly really liked going to tea at Harriet’s house. There were always lots of things to do, and a yummy tea if they were good. Sometimes Mrs. Hare would bake fairy cakes and they could decorate them before they gobbled them up. Sometimes there was homemade bread with strawberry jam and best of all treacle on toast, which got into the fur between their paws, but Mrs. Hare let them lick them clean.

They were a bit sad because Robin, their other friend’s Daddy had got a job a long way away and had moved a long way away. Much thought has been invested into the product. Holly loved the big wooden kitchen table where Laura remembers how boring it was for her to everything in the world seemed to happen. Harriet learn to knit where the class were told to cast on 40 and Holly jumped up onto their chairs to see what stitches and knit 60 rows for a square in a blanket. was going on. Today Mrs. Hare had a big basket Scarves too take an age to reach any usable length. of what she called ‘mending’. “What’s mending” Harriet Hare is intentionally small so items are quick said Holly. “Well” said Mrs Hare, “If a button falls to make and children can quickly gain a sense of off your jeans I stitch it back on again, a stitch in achievement and pride. The patterns have been time saves nine, and if I find a hole in the sleeve of cleverly designed so only the plain knit stitch is Harriet’s cardigan I’ll put on some patches.” Harriet used in the beginners’ kits. None of the baffling winced. She had hoped for a new cardy, but when abbreviations usually found in knitting patterns her Mum showed her what the patches were like have been used yet it is a perfect platform for one bright pink and the other yellow she knew she children to learn how to understand and follow a was going to be very stylish indeed. pattern. Continue reading at: Harriet Hare stands out as ideal, not just as a fun, www.flaxenhare.co.uk/after-christmas educational activity, but as a starting point for

Join the Fight Against Modern Day Slavery. Together We Can Make A Difference

has recently been reunited with her children. She is happy again and sees a world full of possibilities and joy having learned coping mechanisms to deal with the trauma she has been through.

On 17 March, Women’s Business Club and Safe From Slavery launched a partnership to fight Human Trafficking called Women Against Slavery. According to United Nations Statistics, more than 32 million people were victims of trafficking in 2015. The most common reasons for trafficking into or within the UK occurs for labour or sexual exploitation, and it is occurring in every region and of the UK and growing year on year.

Resident B is a UK citizen who sustained repeated abuse as a child. She was susceptible to being groomed by men who preyed on her vulnerability, and they threatened her and her family if she did not comply. Living at home was not safe for her as she was always at risk of being identified in her community by a trafficking gang and repeatedly trafficked, and after fleeing her hometown she is living safe and independently with support after her time in the programme.

Safe from Slavery opened in July 2014 the first UK long-term trauma based recovery home for survivors of sexual exploitation and trafficking. Since then, there has been an amazing series of triumphs realised by survivors who joined the recovery programme. Here is the story of two residents who have since gone on to living safe, healthy and productive independent lives. Resident A was living in another country and had been raised in a family that cared about her. She married and had children but when her marriage ended she lived on her own for a while, sharing custody of her children. She then met a new man who told her all the things she wanted to hear and showered her with attention and affirmation. After some time this new man became an integral part of her life and interacted regularly with her children after he moved in with her. Things carried on well for a while until, for no apparent reason, he started becoming aggressive toward A, and soon after he brought her to other men and insisted she perform sexual acts with them or he would harm and even kill her children and family. She became so terrified of what he might do to her children she complied to ensure their safety and hers. After suffering sustained abuse and violence she eventually found a safe house and fled there, where she was offered to join the SFS recovery programme. After 15 months of living at the SFS shelter home, Naomi’s house, and dedicating her emotional and physical energy to recovery and restoration, Resident A finished the programme, during which time she trained to be a healthcare worker. She now has a full time job as a healthcare assistant and

Women and girls become vulnerable to exploitation for many reasons, but the one thing they share is fear of very real threats to them and those they love made by their exploiters. They become isolated and eventually traumatised to the point that many will find it very difficult to escape the cycle of abuse. This is where you can help. By becoming active in the fight against slavery, you can support both the victims of trafficking by helping to financially support Naomi’s House trauma- based recovery programme. Your help will also enable advocacy for better laws, policing and sentencing of traffickers and raise awareness and help to protect young girls and women from exploitation. Starting in May there will be a blog celebrating the triumphs realised against slavery. Together we are strong and collectively we can fight against modern day slavery and help to restore women survivors of sex slavery. Join us on Facebook and Twitter and look out for future fundraising events and ideas.

Human Trafficking is the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fastest growing crime. Human trafficking is the trade of humans, most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. Due to the hidden and illegal nature of human trafficking, gathering statistics is difficult. Approximately 27 million are trafficked every year, 1.2 million are children. Left is a breakdown of detected victims of trafficking in persons, by age and gender based on 2011 figures from UNODC elaboration on national data. We MUST do something about this ladies! Why? Because we can!

Business Women Against Human Trafficking is not the answer to the problem but it is a small part of the solution. Join us as we do the best we can to end this atrocity.

Become an abolitionist by:

www.stopslavery.womensbusiness.club

How To Connect With Your Customers Online Tips on Taking a DIY Profile Photo People want to, and need to be able to see the person (or people) behind the business to be able to form a connection with your business. If your customer feels connected with your business they are much more likely to buy from you! A great tool to form connections with your customers is through social media. This is where your customer feels they can connect with you directly and where you need to make the effort to show your human side! Did you know that having a LinkedIn profile picture already makes your profile 7x more likely to be viewed? But what sort of photo have you put there? Your profile photo could be the first impression a potential client or employer will have of you - what does yours say about you? We know that that is not always possible to hire a professional if the budget is tight, so here are a few tips for taking a good DIY profile photo with whatever resources you already have at hand. Preparation Before taking the photo, think about how you will present yourself.

You can use anything from a DSLR to a phone camera and as long as you follow these simple rules, you should be able to make the most of the camera you are using. 1. Set your camera up on a tripod or alternatively on a level surface. 2. Make sure your face is well lit. Try standing facing a window - natural light is best! 3. Keep the background minimal - a plain wall works wonders. 4. Make sure the camera is set to the highest quality. 4. Turn the flash off to avoid any nasty shadows or shiny faces. Taking The Photo 1. Get a friend to help you by taking the picture. 2. Frame the photo so that your head fills the screen, with the top of your chest and shoulders visable.

1. Avoid distracting clothing with loud patterns or prints. Clothing with tight grids or a small herringbone pattern can have a moiré pattern effect on camera, so stay away from grid-like patterns.

3. Don’t look at the camera head on. Try standing at an angle, turning your head slightly to look at the camera. It’s also far better to look up at the camera than to look down. So try take your photo from slighly above your eye line.

2. Colours have the ability to brighten your face, or drain it! Find out what colours suit you, either by researching and experimenting!

4. It doesn’t matter if you sit or stand - do what ever is comfortable! Just make sure that you are up straight, with your shoulders back and your head up.

3. Don’t go over the top with accessories, textures or layers. Keep it simple so the focus will be on your face. The same goes for hair and make up!

2. Before taking the photo, make sure the focus point is on the eyes!

Setting Up Your Camera Try to find the best possible camera you can, even borrow one if necessary.

3. And SMILE! :) Lorah-Kelly Beard Director at Strawberry Studios www.strawberrystudios.net

Bring life to your business through beautifully thought out photography & design.

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Sustenance v Success What is a successful artist? Would you rather sell all your work to nameless punters or be lauded by fellow artists whose work you respect. This is the same dilemma for me as a gallery owner. Should I research which artists are commercial and hang their work or only have those whose work interests me.

issue. I am extremely privileged in that I haven’t had to rent a gallery space in a city, town or village but have converted part of a barn to a fairly basic level. I see one of my primary reasons for having a gallery as being a stepping stone for emerging artists towards success in the future – to support and encourage as much as to sell.

I have gone for the latter and Little Buckland Gallery is increasingly becoming known as a location for artists to meet and discuss their work as well as selling. I find dealing with artists who are only interested in sales increasingly tiresome - particularly as it often seems that as a result of their financial success their work stops developing. Obviously, if you have a family to support and it is your only source of income this is a very difficult

One of the high points of being an artist who owns a gallery is the conversation and interaction with fellow artists as well as the luxury of being in the gallery when it is closed and gleaning so much from engaging and learning from the work. I don’t know how interesting it would be if you weren’t an artist – that maybe why most gallery owners’ essential purpose is to be financially successful.

Although this has been an extremely exciting and fulfilling path for the last eight years I have very recently come to the conclusion that I want to focus more on fulfilling people’s creative development. Two events in the last month have led me to reassess what I would like to achieve with the space at Little Buckland. The first was meeting a remarkable artist who has begun to release horrors from her childhood through her work, the other was John Bell, of the Iona Community who was on Radio 4 on Thought for the Day earlier this week commending the Prime Minister for trying to change the effects of incarceration on prisoners - i.e. to give them a second chance and to enable them to realise their potential rather than just locking them up..

I feel in Gloucestershire at the moment we have a very powerful triumvirate of women – the remarkable first woman Bishop of the Anglican Church, Rachel Treweek, the tireless Lord Lieutenant , Janet Trotter and the steely Chief Constable, Suzette Davenport. Let’s make the most of the moment and see what we can achieve. As I say my new direction is very much in its infancy and I would welcome all ideas on how to take this forward. Angela has already suggested I might host one of their Women against Slavery events - This only started on Monday so please email me with ideas. arabella@littlebucklandgallery.co.uk

Festival: 3–19 June 2016

The Hook by Patrick Lichfield

Art Workshops & demonstrations: Tony Allain, Gary Long & many more

Lecture Series: including Sir Roy Strong & John Julius Norwich

Recitals & Concerts: Voces8, the Severn Trio, ‘Come & Sing’ Workshop

Exhibitions: Patrick Lichfield Photographs, Competition Exhibition, World War I & II Full programme details at

broadwayartsfestival.com BAF Festival Ad 128x85.indd 1

15/01/2016 11:55

Introducing April Shipton April Shipton is a budding new artist from Herefordshire who is ready to take the UK by storm with her unique voice and beautiful music. The Women’s Business Club have been very proud to be mentoring April in the business side of her journey (as she wouldn’t do very well if we offered her vocal coaching!) as she takes to the studio and prepares to make her mark in the music business! At the Women’s Business Club we are able to support all kinds of businesses no matter what your background, education, age, dreams and passions are. We are here for you to help you get to where you want to be. Here is what April has to say about her experience with the Women’s Business Club. My meeting with Women’s Business Club started with an odd series of co-incidences in late 2014. A friend recommended me as a singer for The King’s Daughters Conference - one of Angela’s annual events. I felt simultaneously all those hundreds of things you feel when a new opportunity presents itself; chuffed, nervous, excited, terrified, proud - and utterly inadequate. But the timing was perfect, and I knew self-promotion would be a necessary evil in the music business, one I wouldn’t have the privilege to turn down. So, somewhat begrudgingly, I took her up on the opportunity. The 12 months that followed were an unprecedented blessing to me. I found myself surrounded by a group of women who believed in me, wanted to see me achieve my goals and sought new, creative ways to encourage me every time we met. I made deep friendships with them, especially with Angela who showed unparalleled confidence in my set of skills. She didn’t just tell me she believed in me (although that in itself was something I desperately needed) but she continually proved it by offering me performance slots at her business events across the year, putting me in touch with other key music professionals or pro-actively seeking other work for me. She became an important mentor for me, who taught me I am adequate, my dream is achievable and then equipped me to fulfil it. In January this year, she invited me to a Women’s Business Club Vision Mapping workshop. At the time, I had no specific goals for my singing and as a result felt directionless. I felt unable to make decisions, fearing I would make the wrong one. What kind of artist do I want to be? What actions can I take now to aid this journey? I had to dare myself to even articulate these questions. The workshop was exactly the right safe, supported space to be able to ask these questions and seek the expert knowledge of others to help me finally establish the direction I wanted my music to take. That evening, I made 3 solid goals for 2016, and committed to stick to them, working towards them ever since. One of these was to record my music in a professional studio. It’s become a cliché, but I’ve no other way to say it; without Women’s Business Club I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t have been introduced to great producer David at FFG Audio, or be working with him to produce recordings later this year. I wouldn’t have been able to raise my profile at dozens of events last year, including Maximise conference. I probably wouldn’t have even had the self-belief to be writing this at all. I look forward to meeting many of you at WBC events this year and hearing what challenges you overcame to get there.

THE MUSIC BUSINESS

We are pleased to announce that April will be performing at our Maximise Womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Business Conference and Awards this year. Listen out for the soulful sounds of April Shipton and follow her journey at www.aprilshipton.co.uk

Harmony through systems. A process is an activity in which you turn one set of inputs or information into a desired outcome by carrying out a controlled action. When we put lots of these processes together to achieve a goal the processes interrelate and interact with one another to work in harmony to create a system. When we talk about a Quality Management System it encompasses everything that has a direct impact on our ability to achieve our purpose and deliver customer satisfaction. In fact not just the end customer but all of our interested parties such as, suppliers, employees, shareholders, regulatory bodies etc. I would define a good system as “A planned cost effective way to deliver a great customer experience”. Note here the word ‘planned’, we need to design our systems because we want to seek out the best way of working. We also need to guarantee that the customer will have the same great experience every single time, and that means people doing things consistently and following the system. That does not mean you are inflexible nor agile enough to adapt to the needs of your customers, it just means when you find something that works you fix it as a way of life. To me ‘systems thinking’ is all about understanding the whole or the bigger picture; the holistic approach. We need to put this deeper understanding to use as we manage our day to day activities and changes that are happening in our businesses. I would like you to now focus on another word ‘harmony’; it is the internal customer relationships between processes or even departments that allow harmony to be maintained. You want things to run like clockwork, be predictable and take the guess work out of running a business. I think only then can you feel comfortable taking a break or a holiday, knowing that things will be fine when you return. After all Brad Sugars defines a business as a “commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you.” How do you focus on internal harmony? It is easy with the right culture; I think you will understand this more as I describe my approach below. It is much easier designing a system from scratch but managing changes to an existing business needs attention. Knowing what you need is key but knowing how to lead and implement this change of working gives success. Remember people do not always act rationally in times of change.

These are my 8 quick tips on how to start harmonising your system. 1. Define your business in terms of a set number of processes; these processes may span across many departments or be contained within a team. (If you need help with this ask me about “Brain Dump”). 2. Get your team to think in terms of the next person in their process, who is their internal customer? What happens at the point in which processes join/interrelate? 3. Once you have identified these links / internal customers ask the questions ‘What do I need to do to make their job easier?’ and also ‘What would make their day?’; (These two questions alone will help you focus on being present with each other and having the right attitude as you should for any customer). 4. Get your teams to focus on these gaps for their improvements, think of how they communicate with each other. Allow people to question the norm together; is there a better way of doing it? Instead of “it’s not my job to do that!” you are trying to encourage people to look to the system – maybe it’s nobody’s job because it was never considered there is a gap in the system! 5. Be prepared and organised to receive the mass information you will get; acknowledge feedback and facilitate teams for change projects (ideas only create value if implemented). 6. Remember to encourage free flowing ideas, the principles of brainstorming apply – NEVER dismiss an idea! Remember they are trying to improve what they do to help others, you do not want people suggesting things other people should do this will create bad feeling and negate the culture we are trying to drive forward. 7. Celebrate success. The idea is that you can choose what kind of day you have and these improvements are to make where you work the best it can be – it is not about monetary rewards so be careful how you approach any reward scheme. (If you want to delve into continuous improvement through employee suggestion have a look at Kaizen or suggestion schemes). 8. Most of all have fun and learn from each other.

Quality Management Systems to help your business save time and money! Do you strive for excellence? Did you know that a quality management system can provide you with a clear focus, consistency in your operations and predictability in your performance! To find out more, take our simple review and receive a free hour consultation by quoting LFT0315.

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Is now the time to win far more clients? Let’s be honest. You’re not winning as many clients are you’d like! I’d guess you’re even putting off activities to generate more business. Recently, I’ve worked with several clients who weren’t earning anything like the revenue they deserve. It was worrying them. It’s surprisingly easy to transform the situation. Two simple steps will turn it around fast: 1. Motivation is essential First of all - without crystal clear motivation your results will always be disappointing. I know a sales lady whose job is to set up sales meetings for her clients. Though she is a professional she was not hitting her targets. Far from it. The reason soon became clear. She feared that, once her client had won some sales, they’d stop using her. Her motivations were mixed. In thirty minutes flat we reframed her situation. She’s now clear that, by hitting her targets, she will: 1. prove she can make her business successful. (Previously she was a successful salesperson working for someone else.) 2. create an excellent case study and approach to use to win many more clients – who will hopefully be more loyal! She’s now totally committed and confidently hitting her targets!

On a scale of 1 – 10 where are you today? (Where 10 = totally committed to focusing on hitting your own sales targets) 2. Structure multiplies success Sales is just a case of picking up the phone or speaking to people isn’t it? Wrong. A structured approach will multiply your results. A client of mine wanted his team of six people to each win five more clients – in six weeks flat. Their motivation was now 100%, but their approach was hit and miss. I asked questions like: a. What will grab the attention of the target clients you most want so they will be happy to interrupt their busy day? b. How will you build interest from there? c. How will you keep them interested if they’re not yet ready to buy? d. What will you track to make your progress clear? With clear motivation and a good structure, in six weeks flat, they actually doubled revenue - and enjoyed it! Have you set yourself up for sales success? If you’d like to speed up the process, I’d love to work with you. Check out my “6 Weeks to Business Results” advert.

Jane Bromley, Strategenic Ltd www.strategicplannningforgrowth/6-weeks-results Tel: 01672 861767

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HEALTH & WELLBEING Pink&Green’s Roots As a little girl, my playground was woodland and corn fields. As a family we spent our leisure time, walking the hills, exploring the landscape. Something I still do today. My grandparents and parents taught me some of the benefits of plants/ herbs, how to take cuttings, grow plants from seeds and create beautiful gardens.

It’s important to us that our customers know what they will be using on their skin and why. This is also reflected in our labelling. I have used a range of organic oils specifically beneficial for the face that absorb well and have many properties that help restore the skin’s natural balance, as well as for greasy skin. Pink & Green’s products are natural; contain no harsh chemicals or alcohols.

It wasn’t until I trained to become a beauty/holistic therapist that I drew on this experience and learnt how to formulate natural skincare products with a view to selling to the public.

Have you ever used a cleansing Oil? Give it a try; it’s a wonderful experience. You need very little to cleanse (only a few drops); removed with a muslin cloth your skin feels supple and radiant.

Over time, I have noticed that (in general) women expect a lot of themselves. What we can forget to do, is find our “selves” and give this important aspect of “self” much quality time. I want to offer women the opportunity to take a break from addressing the needs of others, and focus upon their own needs for a while.

As a holistic/beauty business owner myself, I know how fabulous it is to relax and enjoy a pampering session, alongside beautifully crafted products. This year, I am offering salon owners and their clients the opportunity to experience Pink&Green signature treatments, with the opportunity to continue the good work at home, with our range of skincare rituals.

Coupled with my skincare knowledge, I looked for a way to offer positive reinforcement of these values, alongside lovingly created skincare. Pink&Green Skincare was born. An organic skincare brand for women, formulated from exquisite specialist oils and butters. I wanted my brand to echo how fabulous and gorgeous we all are. I am passionate about encouraging women to take good care of their skin and to enjoy some quality time too. A skincare ritual, for me, is an opportunity to be with your “self” and honour your inner beauty. It is one thing making sure what you put in your body is pure, but it is also important to be mindful when it comes to what you put on your skin. It is so easy to stick with what you know but looking at what goes into your moisturiser and cleanser can be a chemical eye opener. We make a point of listing all our ingredients on our website, explaining the benefits of each one.

We source all our own natural ingredients responsibly and hand-make all of our range in small batches, with love and care, in our Wiltshire studio. www.pinkandgreenskincare.co.uk

The problem with positive affirmations in the traditional sense is that it feels like a LIE. Because as soon as you look in that mirror you can see you are not thin, you feel heavy and unhealthy. When you lie to yourself it brings about negative feeling. When you feel negative feeling it only brings about the same thing… “like attracts like” as the saying goes. When you’re working with the law of attraction it isn’t on your side until you make it on your side. You will only have positive outcomes if you FEEL positive. The LOA only responds to feelings… not words. So if the words aren’t making you feel good then it’s NO GOOD.

Limiting Beliefs & Why Positive Affirmations Don’t Work… A limiting belief is something we have come to believe about ourselves that limits our expansion as a human being. Things such as ‘I can’t lose weight’, ‘I’m no good creatively’ and ‘I have to work really hard with no rest to make money’. We have picked these up throughout our lives from our childhood and onwards, where a particular belief has been reaffirmed again and again so that it becomes a subconscious thought pattern.

So we need to start writing and saying our affirmations from a place of truth and belief that creates happy feelings. So instead you could write… ‘I know I am overweight and this is something I can change, I am learning to make better choices about my eating and I am on the right path to a thinner, healthier body.’ There is nothing about this statement which is false, everything is true, it is empowering and makes you feel good as you get excited about being thinner and healthier. Jennifer Hall – The Life Buddy For more information on how to make affirmations work for you and learn the other pitfalls of creating affirmations visit www.thelifebuddy.guru

A positive affirmation is used to help change these beliefs about ourselves so that we can achieve our goals and lead happy lives. As we have been taught, it should be written in the present tense and should be the complete opposite to our limiting belief. So in the case of ‘I can’t lose weight, I will always be overweight and my body isn’t designed to be thin’, we have been taught that the affirmation should go as follows – ‘I find it easy to lose weight, I am thin and enjoy eating and feeling healthy.’ Top image courtesy of photostock. Bottom image courtesy of winnond at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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That day I started to attend my own programmes with my team and husband facilitating me. I had to dig deep to see and hear my own value.

Manage your critic – Manage your life

To remember that I am as important as the next person.

Perhaps your critic is someone you love?

Once I got really clear about what I wanted life became easier. My goal was simple or so I thought I wanted to be a good working mum. I wanted to be present and patient with my children and I wanted to create a business that made a difference and I wanted to earn enough money so that my husband didn’t have to work.

Are you left with self-doubt about your business?

For many of my clients all they needed was clarity of what they wanted.

Do you wonder if you are ever going to make a profit?

But for me and many others I needed more confidence to make it happen. I had to learn to take my own advice and do for myself what I did for my clients. I had to learn how to take ownership and responsibility for my own behaviour and stop blaming others for my short comings. One by one I discovered a series of emotional buttons that needed to be disconnected as they triggered behaviour even I was embarrassed to admit came from me. There was a button called ‘not good enough’ and there was another ‘don’t ask questions you will look stupid’ – you get the idea and yours will be different. But the good news is that those buttons can be reprogrammed and become a source of inspiration.

Do you have a little voice in your head that is constantly criticising you?

Would you like to know how to manage your critic, gain clarity of what you want and leave with absolute confidence in your next step? Then I would like to share with you my journey as a self-employed business owner who then separated from her ex-husband only to find I still lacked confidence even though he was no longer nagging me, then my mum died and I discovered I still didn’t like myself that much and she was no longer around nagging me and lastly when my own daughter started self-harming unable to communicate how she felt I found myself on the phone to parent line crying and asking. “How come I can help my clients to be more successful in business and I can help them communicate better at home but I can’t help my own daughter?” The young man on the phone said “What would you tell your clients to do?” That day changed my life forever. I just needed someone to ask me the right questions to change my perception and time to hear myself think. Instead of trying to teach my daughter confidence I knew I had to demonstrate it. And there was me supporting my clients daily to gain clarity and confidence but I hadn’t applied the same process to my own life.

For some, disconnecting the buttons was all that was needed for confidence to flourish and clarity to be sustained and for some change is hard and it is messy. There can be a gap between where you are now and where you want to be and what I have learned is that it takes a handpicked support network to get you through. A group of people that know your focus and give you evidence based feedback. In my book that I am writing I will be sharing the clarity cycle – a step by step process to change the way you listen to and question your critic and stories of how my clients and I have turned our critics into our strength and solution detectives. By sharing with you a simple step by step listening techniques you will change your focus and therefore change the response. You matter Your business makes a difference Even if you are selling something that everyone else sells – only you can sell it with your style, your language and your finesse. It is YOU that makes the difference and so you have a responsibility to show up and do your best work, you deserve to do more of what you love and I so want to help you ditch the critic that says you can’t. Women’s Business Club is a vital part of my support and growth in 2016 and as a thank you I would like to offer a Clarity and Confidence Session which includes a Wealth Dynamics Business Development tool that will help you identify your strengths.

Sometimes all you need to manage your critic is for someone to listen to you without judgment or criticism or suggestion, long enough to hear your own thoughts. Giving you enough time to trust your own process and your own way of thinking. If you don’t have someone like that in your life right now, then please contact me today. I will not only be that person and listen to you without judgement or assumption but I will also introduce you to a growing community of people who are learning to change the way they listen.

Clarity is the most amazing thing:

This is a two hour one to one session with a business report that will transform the way you feel about yourself and leave you with clarity of your next best step. I normally ask for an investment of £225 but for the first 10 to sign up and book you can have this session for just £147.

- Your head feels clear - Your stomach untangles - And confidence has space to flourish

Not sure if this is right for you then let’s chat with no obligation and you can find out if I can help you or not.

With the right support change is possible and it can even be fun.

Call me now on 01329 286648 or email Sheryl@stepbysteplistening.com

CROSSWORD

- Solutions on page 62 -

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ilton. ricia Ham with Chanel, T o 5 c 1 o 0 C 2 e r Our Littl cult yea ricia iffi T d , ts ry n ve ging eve n After a a ch year is e ed lif g of th unexpect e beginnin quare. This th t a lf e rs d S found he oking Re ible way w, overlo every poss in in Mosco rt a st w e n d n was a bra xpected divorce. ne after an u

The Woman Behind The Business ......

Where does your story begin? My daughter wanted a fascinator for a wedding but she couldn’t find one to go with her grey wool, dress, plum patent shoes and handbag. She wanted to combine the colours in a fascinator. We searched high and low and couldn’t find the right colours, so when we went for lunch she announced that I was going to make her one! This made me realise that there was a gap in the market with the fascinators your could buy and the fascinators wanted. That’s how my bespoke business began. I have always been creative and had a passion for making something from concept to reality. Coming from a career in primary school teaching, with no previous business experience, I jumped in with both feet. My first steps were to work with some prominent hat designers who were running courses in London to learn the skills I needed.

How do you juggle great personal struggle and business? I have used the business as a vehicle to shut out the difficulties in my personal life. The business has kept me grounded during times of difficulty. What also happened was that I was able to use both positive and negative energy in my designs. The last collection, the Merino Wool Collection, was very significant in that respect as I went from a business with pieces in one boutique to headwear in four boutiques. Everything sold out before Christmas.

So how did the struggle make that possible?

I thought that positive energy would be creative, I hadn’t appreciated that negative energy, when I allowed it to be used, was even more powerful. One of the boutiques was the Penny Brohn who sold to many chemo patients.

How did you practically use the negative energy in your work? A fellow artist encouraged me to channel my emotions through a journal and a portfolio using textures, images and shapes to express my feelings. The journal reflected on my past, right back to childhood. Everything builds on past experiences from your childhood to the present day, these are very much part of your identity. One morning I woke up with a lot of hats to make but the journal got in the way. I simply had to write in the journal. So that morning I was compelled to write in my journal about my childhood experiences. The emotion inside had a route out through the written word while the portfolio was an opportunity to use the reflective negative energy. This was very powerful. So business has very much been a major part of my healing process.

What would your top tip be to business women going through a personal life changing crisis? To use the energy and emotion in a positive, creative way in your business. It can be an opportunity if you can hold the energy together and focus on a business goal.

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