Happy Christmas and New Year

I’d like to wish all my clients, colleagues and friends in comms a lovely Christmas and Happy New Year.

I’m signing off for the rest of 2017 and back to business on Monday 8 January 2018. I’m looking forward to spending some quality time with my family and recharging my batteries after a very busy 2017.

I’m very thankful to my many clients, business partners and friends who’ve supported me through this year. It’s been a mixture of brilliance, personal sadness and a big home redesign and build challenges.

I’ve faced up to one of my biggest fears in professional communications life, that of public speaking. I’ve been working on this for a couple of years, gradually building up my confidence through teaching internal communication at Bournemouth Uni and getting involved in different professional groups.

 

In January I became a Chartered Public Relations Professional after a day’s rigorous assessment with the CIPR. This was a further step towards confident public speaking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In October I delivered a measurement workshop and presentation to 70 plus internal communication professionals in Amsterdam with Poppulo. This was a significant milestone for me on my public speaking journey, and one I really enjoyed (in the end).

 

 

 

 

In November I was honoured to receive a silver award for Outstanding Independent Professional at the PRide awards for the South of England and Channel Islands. It’s the first time I’ve entered awards as an independent professional and this is a huge achievement for me and acknowledgement of the work I’ve done over the last three years, significantly with CIPR Inside and the internal communications profession.

 

 

I’m really pleased that my approach to my own professional development is working and on track.

Alongside these achievements we started a large building project in our home to make the house work better, give the family more space and my husband and I some office space. We started at the beginning of May and we are just on the home straight now with a house full of all the trades doing their bit to make our home comfortable for Christmas. I’m hugely grateful for their work and it’s been one heck of an experience.

We’ve cooked, eaten and washed up outside, reduced our stuff by 30% and 80% of what remained was stored in the loft, we’ve shared rooms and enjoyed an alfresco kitchen, we’ve lost power, water and so many things in the chaos, but we’ve all kept our cool despite the project taking a lot longer than planned. We are nearly there and looking forward to having lots of visitors again in 2018.

 

 

 

Amongst all of this, my father was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease in June. It is the most horrible disease but he managed it with dignity and his determination to keep going was inspiring. He passed away in November and we said our final farewell in December. As his only child I was determined to speak at his funeral and I’m proud that I did that for him. He had a super send off and was loved by many. He was a legend in my home town of Bath.

And so this year I’m donating to Motor Neuron Disease Association instead of sending cards to clients friends and family.

Read more about the charity here.

I wish everyone a super Christmas and New Year, however you may be spending it.

I’m looking forward to picking up my plans in 2018 refreshed and raring to go and hopefully with a little less chaos and more sparkles of brilliance.