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What to do with your old phones and cameras (and do good in the process!)

Here one of our fabulous corporate photograher Jayne Lloyd for our Wivenhoe House, Colchester events, shares an exciting opportunity for you to get rid of your old junk and maybe change someone’s life;

Our corporate photographer, Jayne Lloyd is Project Manager at photography organisation Shutter Hub, who have launched #CameraAmnesty to support Accumulate, an inspirational enterprise helping young homeless people to develop their confidence and self-worth through creativity.

“The Accumulate photographers exhibited the work they produced on their photography course at the Guardian offices, were featured in the national press, and some were offered opportunities to continue their work beyond this, like Eric, who was offered an exhibition at his hostel. As exciting as that was, he was limited in what he could do because he, like pretty much every student in the group, was relying on equipment borrowed from Accumulate.

It occurred to us at Shutter Hub that between us we have a few old cameras or even mobile phones with good cameras gathering dust and not worth very much on eBay, and we’re sure other people might too. What if we donated these to Accumulate so that people like Eric could continue to develop their skills and keep taking photos?

For practical reasons, we are looking for the whole package so that includes bodies, lenses, chargers, batteries and memory cards too. If you think you might have something that could be donated to a student that’s fantastic – please do get in touch.”

Links:

Shutter Hub Article: https://shutterhub.org.uk/blog/cameraamnesty-an-appeal-to-help-homeless-photographers

Guardian exhibition article: https://www.theguardian.com/inequality/gallery/2017/may/08/london-photographed-by-young-and-homeless-accumulate-made-by-us

Accumulate : http://accumulate.org.uk

Jayne Lloyd Photography

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Charity of The Year – Why We Bother – And Why You Should Too

Every year the BWN year is choosing a charity to give a little extra love to.

If you are a charity that we haven’t chosen this year, that doesn’t mean we don’t love you. As a charity you will always get to attend our events for a discounted rate (even on the day on the door!)

We will retweet, like and share all of your content that you share with us.

(All of our social media is accessible via our website – top right.)

And when we have room we will happily let you bring your banner along to our events.

You can also write for our blog whenever you wish.

(Just ping us the details)

Got an event coming up? We are happy to mention it in our business ops slot. Just email it to your local coordinator.

(Because we really do love everything local!)

However we want to do more (well that’s typical us!) and so we thought how great it would be if we could make every business woman from across a whole county talk about one charity. One charity that works tirelessly to make a difference. As founder of the BWN Mandie Holgate has worked with lots of third sector organisations and so knows first hand the obstacles that they face. And the pots of cash are not so easy to get to any more.

But fear not, charities don’t want just your money. Here’s our top ways to support our charity of the year. If you attend our events we would adore it, love it, and thank you forever if you would do the following for our charity of the year in your county;

Retweet, like share and talk about the charity of the year on line. That way we can like your comments, and share them too. That way your followers and your brand awareness goes up too!

Want to get in the local press? (The answer to that one is yes you do!) Raise a few quid for our charity of the year, mention us and together with the charity there is good chance your smiley face and your bit for charity could get your business in the press. And that is not just good for them, its good for you too. Charities aren’t daft, they know why businesses get involved. Yes we love the warm fuzzy feeling that it gives us, but its also good for business, stands your business a part from the rest, shows you care, and a ton of other things. All good. All worth doing. So fancy sitting in a bath of beans? Giving a £1 for every sale next month? Doing a nude calendar? (We’ve done that…twice!) then go for it!

And its worth remembering your gestures don’t need to be huge. Just talking about the charity, really does help them.

Attending an event? Could you carry a few fliers for our charity of the year?

What about having a 1 2 1 with a member of the charities team, so you could understand what they do, what they need, who the would love to talk to. Knowledge is power and big powerful networks are very good for charities. Could your network be helping our charity of the year?

Add a logo to your website? Remember for charities if you knew the extent of the work that they did you would probably want to be able to do more. Could you add a logo, a mention of The BWN’s charity of the year to your website, social media, business literature. Help us, help our charity of the year.

Write a blog article? Could you write an article sharing what you know, care about? Anything. Remember a charity is not just after money. It’s after staying power. Charities are created all the time, which means that the ones that are already here have to work twice as hard. What could you write about to support our charity of the year? Raise their profile and give them staying power and ensure their future? Charities live on a knife’s edge, never knowing how they will fund the following year. Scary right?

Every £1 spent on a charity in the UK is being fought fiercely over, so if you can raise the profile of a local organisation that is helping in your community you just became a really nice person. Good feeling right?

And here are our loved up Charites of the year;

Essex – Colchester Community Voluntary Services – CCVS

The title may suggest they only work in North Essex, however their work supports groups and organisations across Essex. So by supporting them it means Essex business women really are supporting community groups. And get to attend events meeting third sector, public sector and private sector. Their Banking on business events are proving a great success and Dawn Moss our Saturday Essex events coordinator is already signed up as a Volunteer. And with over 600 volunteers, that’s a lot of good happening in Essex. Can you feel how good that is!

 

Shirley is the business woman from CCVS that you can expect to see at our Marks Tey Hotel events. Get in touch with us to share your ideas to raise money, raise their profile and get your warm fuzzy feeling that makes Essex that much better.

Learn more about CCVS here and please please, prettiest of please’s do get involved in their social media and let them know we told you to!

 

 

Suffolk – Age UK Suffolk

Our Bury St Edmunds events are hosted at Age UK Suffolk’s HQ and so how perfect to support them.

Kinsey Foster and Susan Pope host our Suffolk events and would be happy to talk about how you could get involved to support Suffolk’s charity of the year

Learn more about Age UK Suffolk here and please do let them know that we said they were awesome and deserve your support. You can contact your local Suffolk coordinator direct via your page. However feel free to contact us if you wish to.

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Essex Business Woman Goes North (Well Norfolk.)

Susan Pattrick has been a member of the BWN since its launch in 2009 and is a passionate believer in our ethos and power to help all women in business succeed in all areas of business.

As Founder of Dancing Giraffe Susan wants to help all people with any disability access the services and support they need to. Here Susan shares why she jumped in her car and visited Norfolk’s Coordinator Denise Bretton and her events.

On 7^th May I went up to Norwich to attend The Business Woman’s Network meeting held at Caister Hall Hotel at Caister St Edmund near Norwich. I set off at about 7.15 am not knowing how long it was going to take me to get there. It was a beautiful sunny day and the birds were singing in the trees – although I have to say I didn’t hear much of that because I had Radio 2 on. I love singing along in the car to cheerful songs as I am driving but I cannot sing in tune to save my life. It’s a good job that no one else can hear me.

I had to leave Gerald in the shed again (for those of you that don’t know, Gerald is my organisations mascot since our logo is a Dancing Giraffe and he loves attending Essex BWN events with me) he was most unhappy about that and sulked because I wouldn’t take him along. Of course it was polling day and he wanted me to take him along to the polls! He isn’t registered to vote, which is why I was trying to explain to him that he couldn’t cast his vote and even if he did it wouldn’t count! Anyway I managed to calm him down with a few tasty morsels of green shoots – that’s his favourite food and he seemed satisfied! At least when I got home he was pleased to see me – but that’s getting ahead of myself!

When I arrived at the hotel, (it was being used as a polling station), I was confronted with this beautiful old building set in the most gorgeous grounds and set back from the road in a very quiet area. It was 9.30 am when I arrived (half an hour before the meeting was due to start). I was the first one there – isn’t it always the way, the furthest away was the first one who arrived! The hotel reception staff were lovely and offered me a cup of coffee or tea whilst I waited for Denise Bretton to arrive.  Unfortunately Mandie Holgate couldn’t make it because she had a client to coach. She was really miffed at missing out on the presentation. The photo here is the one with Mandie and I at the recent BWN event at the Crowne Plaza, Maldon where the Colchester BWN is held.

There was general networking to start with and about 10.30 Denise asked everyone to take their seats in readiness for Sophie Jewry’s presentation. Sophie Jewry, is a fabulous Business Brand Consultant. For the next hour she was very entertaining, explaining how to identify your ideal client (you need to do this for every client profile that you have) and put yourself in their shoes even down to personal things like who your ideal client loves, what they eat and how they dress. We were given a printed guide on how to identify your ideal client which is very useful to me. I didn’t realise how in depth it was just to ensure that you don’t waste money on clients that are never going to use your services. It was an absolutely brilliant hour and well worth the two and a bit hours driving time. I made several good contacts there including the Norfolk Knitters! If you get the chance to go and listen to Sophie then do take it. It is absolutely brilliant! Mandie did say that Sophie was going to come to Colchester BWN at some stage so don’t miss it! Thanks to Jayne Lloyd our fabulous photographer for the pic too. I’m the one in the branded yellow hoodie!

Join us at our events in Norfolk and Essex and if you are in any county in the UK, we would love to help you get paid to network. Learn more here.

Say Hi to Susan and learn more at Dancing Giraffes website – www.dancinggiraffe.com

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Essex Business Women – Endeavours Beyond Business

BWN business women are no strangers to raising money for charity. Having raised 1000’s of pounds for charities including Farleigh’s Hospice, Colchester Mind, Little Havens, Comic Relief, Children in Need and even making donations to Colchester Food Bank Christmas 2014. So its something to celebrate when not one business woman but 5 are raising money for local charities alongside running their own businesses.
It was a proud moment when at the January Essex Networking event at Five Lakes Crowne Plaza business women were supporting and helping to raise the profile of these business women and their charity plans.

It’s great that the ideas range from pampering and fun to “Wow I’m glad it’s you and not me, here’s a fiver!”
Here we take look at the business women doing their bit;

First has to be Jenny Sjoellma from PA Angels, About My Area Chelmsford and About My Area Maldon. If it wasn’t enough to be running 3 businesses Jenny in 17 days time will be jumping out of an aeroplane for Farleighs Hospice. Jenny said “My friend and colleague, from whom I took over AboutMyArea, was diagnosed earlier in the year with bowel and liver cancer. She is progressing well with her chemo and couldn’t have done so without the help of Farleigh Hospice. Skydving will be one of the things off my bucket list” Stella Bradbrook is a business women known and loved by The BWN so we are whole heartedly supporting Jenny, but happy to be doing it with our feet on the ground!  To support Jenny learn more here. And remember if you can’t spare any money just sharing the link on your social media could help.

Next up is not just one BWN business woman but 2! Tracy Shave a Laughter Yoga Instructor from Moulding Futures wanted to take part in the Farleigh’s £50 challenge so asked at The BWN if anyone would like to work on it together. Photographer Jayne Lloyd jumped at the opportunity and so together they are putting on a unique event. This event will get Essex women together. All having a make over, sharing cake and chat and finishing the event with a photograph of them holding a giant heart with a message for whomever they wish written on the heart. Tracy said “I’m so lucky to still have my Nan but I thought how lovely it would be coming up to Valentines day if Essex women could have a special picture they could treasure for always and show Farleigh’s how much they care too. To learn more click here – again if you are busy or already have a chosen charity for the year a tweet and a Facebook post would be gratefully appreciated too!

Karen Daniels from The Aloe Life and Luxury Florida Villas was so touched by Jayne and Tracy’s idea and passion that she created a hamper that will be raffled off at the event being hosted by Tracy Shave and Jayne LLoyd.

 

 

Lastly but very impressively Gayle Berry from Blossom and Berry Baby Massage and Training runs Little Blossoms Project Malawi. In the UK Gayle can be seen selling beautiful unique gifts and love specs to raise vital funds and to raise awareness of her work in Malawi. You can learn more here and even purchase a Feel Good Metal Feather Necklace or Love Specs.

We have already heard reports that BWN business women have shown their support for all of these worthy endeavours. Its rather cool seeing life through Love specs, you should try it. And lets be honest we would all rather put our hands in our pockets than jump out of a plan, so good luck Jenny!

Charities often tell us that when businesses support them its no just about raising money, the really important thing for many charities is that thanks to businesses like The BWN business women, charities and their work to help others gets noticed and recognised. It really is a win win situation!

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Project Make A Sack of Cash