Networking, networking, networking

Yesterday I had to travel to London . I needed to be there for an eary start today.  My grandchildren invited me to be part of their "take someone special to school"day. I jumped at the chance to spend time with them. My brother dropped me off at the fast cat terminal where I joined the short queue of people leaving then Island. It is festival weekend and people are arriving in their hundreds. I was quite glad to be going the other way! In the queue, I found myself in conversation with a lovely lady who had just moved to the Island. It had been a disastrous move with a removal man who had been less than 5star. In no time at all, I found myself recommending Graeme Jeremy of 5 star  transport. Graeme has helped me move more times than I care to remember and has always provided an excellent service. Graeme s a member of Wightbuzz, a networking group I run. This poor lady then went on to tell how the house needed a lot of attention and the garden was going to take some taming. I had no hesitation in recommending Rely on Andy and Do it all Dave for any repair work and Johnny Keywood of JK Maintenance to tame the garden. I gave the lady my contact details without hesitation and feel sure she will be in contact. There are many more members I can recommend in due course. 

Having bid farewell to this new found friend, I joined the queue for the coach to London where, once again, I found myself chatting to ladies in the queue . This time we is cussed customer service and I was happy to share a recent story of issues imhadcwith Southern Vectis and how the customer service lady had put them right! 

Once in London, I boarded the district line train which was fairly full. A school party were on a trip and I found myself in conversation with one of the parent helpers. Again a lively discussion ensued and it was appropriate to give hervonevof my leaflets. She was delighted to see I had some family friendly working opportunities and she was keen to pass these on to some of the children's parents as they struggled to fit work round their family. I would love to help them and look forward to their call. I have more than one business I run so be it Wikaniko, Phoenix or Primary Stars, I can help them grow a business. 

MumsClub comes to the Isle of Wight

I am part of the MumsClub Top 100 and as such I was privileged to take be an ambassador for MumsClub at both the London Baby show and the Birmingham Baby show earlier this year .

Mumsclub founder, Jane Hopkins,(in the pink cardigan above) offered me the opportunity to become an ambassador and I jumped at the chance.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time on both shows and enjoyed talking to new mums and mums-to-be and their partners/husbands. Many of them would love to run their own businesses whilst others were horrified at the very idea. I know when I was a mum to be many moons ago, I hadn't considered being self employed but once baby number one was 18 months, I started my own nursery school. I was 27 at the time and have been self employed ever since and wouldn't have it any other way!

Some of the ladies I met were already running their own businesses whilst others liked the idea and had some ideas of their own. For others - well they thought it was a nice idea but didn't know where to start.

For these ladies, I was able to offer some possible ideas. I run my own home based businesses so was happy to share information about  Lyn's Green Biz - the eco friendly business I run,  Cards From Lyn - where I am an independent trader for Phoenix trading and Primary Stars where I promote super educational games. Anyone of these is an opportunity for others to join. These family friendly opportunites allow the distributors to work when and where they want so can be an ideal option. I have over 20 years experience in this field so am able to offer a lot of support to my teams.

Yesterday, Jane Hopkins and I set up the facebook page for MumsClub Isle of Wight and already there has been a lot of interest. I look forward to carrying this forward and supporting mums so their businesses grow and flourish. For more news why not sign up for my newsletter or leave me a comment below.

Time to get blogging

It has been a long time and life has been whizzing by. I seem to have got way behind with my blogging. There has been so much to blog about too. So I am now going to try and put this right and here on this blog I'll write about my life as a rotarian, a mum, a granny, a church member, a business owner, a networking guru etc etc . But first I must get some sleep. I WILL be back.