WorkStory

“How often do you have the opportunity to talk about mental health?” - Dr Richard Castle

Sometimes we push our mental health to the back burner until an event happens that pushes it to the forefront of our mind.

At todays WorkStory event we had the honour of hosting Dr Richard Castle who spoke about trauma and mental health. Dr Richard described the way the brain🧠 works as being like test tubes full of chemicals and when something traumatic happens the test tubes become imbalanced.

Employers can do so much for their employees that have recently been involved in a traumatic event. This can be as little to taking the time to speak and actively listen to their employees or provide additional support, for example counselling.

Did you know:
🧪1/4 people suffer from poor mental health.
🧪 It can take the brain 6-8 weeks to recover from a traumatic event.
🧪 Most companies do not have a procedure in place to support their employees should an "unthinkable" event happen at work.

Dr Richard is also involved with Diverse Leap which is a charity that trains their volunteers to actively listen to people’s problems. They provide a safe space for people to freely speak without judgement and are planning to expand very soon.

It was lovely to also be able to support The Nelson Trust and hear from Andy Jarrett who spoke about the amazing things the charity has accomplished and their upcoming events. For example, walking/jogging/skipping 1k everyday in May!

Thank you to everyone who came to our event today. Whether you are monthly regulars or this was your first event; it is lovely to see our WorkStory community expanding.

- Alivia

Alice Chubb Ryan Hogarty

⭐️ Ines Alvez ⭐️

On the evening of 14th June 2017 Ines Alvez was up late revising for her chemistry exam when her father told her and her family to leave Grenfell tower as he saw smoke coming from the 4th floor.

Ines got changed into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, picked up her phone and chemistry notes and left the flat.

Ines tried to revise whilst waiting for the fire to be put out as they believed it was only a small fire but she said it was impossible. At this point no knew the magnitude of the fire.

Despite her traumatic night Ines Alves decided to sit her GCSE chemistry exam the following morning.

After Ines exam finished, she went back to the flats to help other families.

Dr Richard Castle was the director for the Grenfell hope projected which focused on the long term’s psychological effect of the fire on individuals who lived there.

Dr Richard will be speaking at this months WorkStory event. Press the link to find out more:
https://bit.ly/3v00GxM

- Alivia

Alice Chubb Ryan Hogarty

🗣️"Work with the grain of autism, not against it..."

This morning we had the pleasure of hearing from Rt Hon Sir Robert Buckland KBE KC MP who spoke to us about Autism in Employment, in light of his upcoming government report on the topic in the coming weeks.

It is shocking to hear that still only 3 in 10 autistic adults are in employment, showing employers are missing out on a much wider pool of talented individuals and prospective employees with superior creativity, focus, and memory; increased efficiency and personal qualities such as honesty and dedication; and the ability to offer a unique autism-specific perspective.

By addressing how we recruit and retain employees, we not only create a longer-term and more sustainable future for autistic people, but we create a more inclusive workforce which benefits ALL employees wanting to lead a productive, fulfilled, and balanced career.

To close as Sir Robert Buckland did, "You don't know what you're missing!"

👏🏼THANK YOU to Sir Robert for taking the time to share his personal story and findings, to Rachael Fletcher who came on behalf of Allsorts Youth Project, and to all of our attendees who came with an open mind and willingness to learn and engage.

🎟️ We look forward to seeing you again at our next event in March (details TBC very soon).

- Alice Chubb

📸 StroudTimes

Alice Chubb Alivia McClung Ryan Hogarty Allsorts Gloucestershire

🗣️“We will better help people if we can truly represent them”🗣️

What an incredible start to WorkStory’s new year! This morning we heard from the incredibly inspiring Kathy O'Leary who spoke to us about equal opportunities and diversity in the workplace.

Kathy shared her experiences as a leader - from gender sterotyping and being called ‘bossy’ and ‘aggressive’, to patronising male-led interviews - encouraging our attendees to stop and think…

💡…is promoting equality in the workplace enough to close the gap? What should we be doing to ensure of equality of opportunity? 💡

Some great engagement from our group today, with some new and familiar faces, who all came with an open mind to network with their fellow local professionals and discuss these difficult questions.

Because this “isn’t a woman’s issue; it is a societal issue”, and one we can all make an effort to combat.

Thanks again for coming, and we’ll look forward to seeing you again on February 19th!📣

- Alice Chubb

🙋🏼‍♀️Do you prefer face to face or virtual networking? 🙋🏼‍♀️

It is safe to say that the current networking landscape has significantly changed since we were all online during the Covid-19 pandemic. It meant we could connect with people across the country and cut down on travel time; but with these new habits are we now missing out on the value of getting out of the work place and networking face to face?

At WorkStory we enjoy real time real value networking. This means everyone sharing in the same moment at the same time.

Join us tomorrow at The Old Lodge upon Minchampton common as we hear from Kathy O’Leary speaking about equal opportunities in the work place.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Tickets🎟️-https://lnkd.in/eXXHWby6

- Alivia & Alice

#

If you could, would you buy a Wonka bar of chocolate?

If you said yes why? Is it the story behind the chocolate? Are intrigued because of the publicity? Is for the golden ticket opportunity? Is it if the opportunity to change your life? Or are you just interested to see what it would taste like?

It is undeniable that the story of Wonka’s chocolate is a powerful influence which would create a want for consumers to buy this.

But then that makes you think, how important is storytelling when you create a company or a product? A story can make someone feel connected to the product and create an emotional response.

At WorkStory we recognise how important storytelling is for personal and professional connections as well as a brand/ company.

Why not come to one of our WorkStory events and see how this really works.

- Alivia

Alice Chubb Ryan Hogarty

Where to start!

THANK YOU to all who came for a fantastic evening of food, drinks, and festivities. It was a privilege to be able to take the time to reflect on our first year and each of our speakers, and to be able to support the Emily's Gift mission. Through some local Redkite Solicitors fundraising, and at last night's event, we managed to raise over £1500 (including a gift from one very generous event-goer❤️)

We consider ourselves very lucky to have heard from some incredible storytellers this year and are very proud of the community we have been able to build. Turns out, people quite like telling their stories, and even more people like to come and listen!

🎄Whilst some of us might be winding down for Christmas, there is still plenty to look forward to in 2024. Julie Kent MBE is still pushing towards her March target with Emilys Gift so please do continue to share and support.

And we are very excited to announce that WorkStory have almost 8 months worth of speakers in the pipeline, so keep your eyes peeled for information to come...

First up at the end of January is Kathy O'Leary on the Gender Pay Gap.

What does your 2024 look like? Will you be making New Years resolutions, and are you entering into them with the right mindset?

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from your Gloucestershire WorkStory team
🩵🩷💚

- Alice

Alice Chubb Alivia McClung Ryan Hogarty Lauren Elysia Hogan

Thanks again to all of our raffle contributors as well - look at the prizes we had!

Pictures by StroudTimes

Do you want to help support Julie Kent MBE and Emily's Gift mission to raise £500,000 before 10th March 2023 but don’t know how to?

Why not come and join us on Wednesday 13th December 2023.

All proceeds from the ticket sale will be donated to Emily’s Gift as well as the money raised with our raffle.

Tickets: https://lnkd.in/gFfD73mP
Tickets include soft drink on arrival and buffet food.

You don’t want to miss out on our amazing raffle prizes:

🎭 A family ticket to attend Everyman Theatre - Cheltenham pantomime.

🪂 A bronze gliding experience with Cotswold Gliding Club.

👩🏼‍🎓Access to The Human Business networking course.

🐄 £10 Wholly Gelato gift voucher.

🎁 A gift hamper from Investec.

🍽️ A meal for 2 at the newly refurbished The Stroud Hotel.

Any many more amazing prizes, too many to name!

Will we see you there?

- Alivia

Alice Chubb Ryan HogartyLauren Elysia Hogan

So many amazing contributors already for our charity raffle next week - THANK YOU!

We’re still taking donations and selling tickets, and we’d love for even more of you to get involved.

For £20 you can join us for a celebration of WorkStory with local people and businesses, welcoming drinks, a festive buffet at the Old Lodge, and access to our fundraising raffle 🎟️🎟️🎟️, all for a wonderful cause.

You have to be in it, to win it! 🏆🏅

Come along, and share with a friend 💜

Link here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-celebration-of-workstory-tickets-767568557217?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios

💜 Emily Kent 💜

At only 3 years old Emily lost her fight to cancer. During this time there was no psychologist on the paediatric oncology ward which left all families with no support during the treatment, at the end of treatment or if the child didn’t make it though treatment.

If you believe that ensuring that a child psychologist is at the Emily Kent Unit at Gloucester Royal Hospital why not attend our event on the 13th December 2023 from 5pm- 7pm at the old lodge.

Tickets available here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-celebration-of-workstory-tickets-767568557217?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl

Alivia McClung Alice Chubb Ryan Hogarty Lauren Elysia Hogan

💜”I have to help hold him down and facilitate the truama”💜
- Toby’s Mum Nikki

We all know that cancer is horrific but in children it is even more heartbreaking. Do they know what is happening to them? How does this effect their mental health when they grow up? How does it impact the family?

I went on to Emilys Gift page and read the Q&A by Nikki. It was heartbreaking to read that she worries about her’s and Toby’s future relationship and also how his sister processes his diagnosis.

Nikki explains that she was able to get funding for 6 counselling sessions which helped her immensely but was not enough. Just as concerning, there is not any psychological support for Toby or his sister on the ward.

It’s reading stories like this that really magnifies the issue that children with cancer are facing in Gloucestershire. This is why we believe it is so important to do our bit to support Emily’s Gift mission of rasing £500,000 to fund a child psychologist and we hope you find it just as important too.

If you are not sure how to support donate, fund raise or attend our next event where a portion of the ticket sales also going to the charity: https://lnkd.in/evVh_Jr7 or you can donate to our raffle!

Date: 13th December 2023
Location: The Old Lodge, Minchinhampton.
Time: 5pm-7pm

- Alivia

Alice Chubb Ryan Hogarty Lauren Elysia Hogan Emily's Gift Julie Kent MBE

💜There is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we are brave enough to be it💜
- Amanda Gorman

In October we had the privilege of having Julie Kent MBE speak at our event. During this talk we learnt about Emily’s story as well as Julie’s herself. Many of us left inspired by what Julie has done and how Emily herself has made such a huge difference to this world.

In light of this event, we wanted to support Julie and Emily’s mission to reach £500,000 to raise money for a psychologist at Gloucester Royal Hospital. We have seen so many amazing local charities donation to the cause as well as brilliant ideas from Julie and The Human Business where you can pay just £2 and ask three people do the same.

We decided that the best way for us to support this mission was to donate all proceeds from our December Networking event to Emily’s gift and host a raffle to raise as much money as we can.

We are hopefully that people who have attended WorkStory over the year would be able to attend our event and for us to showcase what amazing attendees we have.

If you would like to support us support Emily’s Gift then please do attend our December event.

- Alivia

Ticket information🎟️:
Wednesday 13th December.
5pm to 7pm
The Old Lodge GL6 9AQ
Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-celebration-of-workstory-tickets-767568557217?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=cp&aff=ebdsshcopyurl

💡A common theme for people finding happiness is through adversity💡

Today we were lucky enough to hear Danny Matthews speak on the illusion of happiness which allowed us all to really explore what makes up happy and also what limits we push ourselves to to try and find “happiness”.

Danny shared his personal story about burnout and what he would do for happiness.

Danny’s talk encouraged lots of conversation and food for thought for everyone who attended.

Thank you Danny for your time and delivering an engaging and insightful talk.

Our question to you which Danny asked the attendees is: “if i had X I would be happy”. Please comment your answers below.

Would your answer change if we changed the question to “if I had X I would have fulfilment”?

Announcement about our final WorkStory event of the year is coming soon…

- Alivia

Alice Chubb Ryan Hogarty Lauren Elysia Hogan

THE WORLD NEEDS MORE PEOPLE LIKE…

✨Danny Matthews✨
(- Sam Agnew ☀️, Good Business Charter)

Danny is a branding expert with a big vision to solve the worlds biggest problems with creative design and brand strategy. Danny has been featured on BBC radio, shared a stage with Facebook and Google, just to mention a few of his many achievements.

During next months WorkStory event, Danny is going to help our WorkStory attendees explore the illusion of happiness and finding fulfilment.

In preparation for Danny’s talk we’d love you to start having a think about what happiness and fulfilment means to you. Do we have to hit the bottom before we rise?

🎟️Tickets are available here: THE ILLUSION OF HAPPINESS - LEADERSHIP - WORKSTORY https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-illusion-of-happiness-leadership-workstory-tickets-746902444317?utm-campaign=social&utm-content=attendeeshare&utm-medium=discovery&utm-term=listing&utm-source=wsa&aff=ebdsshwebmobile

- Alivia & Alice

Ryan Hogarty

This month we are re-telling our own story…

Stay tuned.

📣5 DAYS REMAINING 📣

There is only 5 days left until our next WorkStory event where we will hear Julie Kent MBE story.

We still have tickets available so make sure you purchase now to avoid disappointment.

🎟️: https://lnkd.in/eWRebDWG

“The mornings became the worst part of everyday.”

Today we heard from Frank Saliki (Associate CIPD, Author and Speaker) and his lived experience of racism in employment. Frank shared how he had to work 5 times harder then his peers but never received any recognition. Frank explained how the prejudice he experienced really impacted this mental health and made getting up to go to work the worst part of his day.

Frank highlighted how the people who usually write the diversity and equality strategies never spoke to the people it impacted. I think his talk really hammered home the impact racism and the lack of inclusion has.

On your first day of your new job that you worked hard to get you should not have to be told by your parents “remember it’s going to be tough” just because the colour of your skin.

We thank you Frank for your courage in speaking out and really stimulating those difficult discussions that we push to the side as we may not be the individual that is directly affected.

Thank you to everyone who intended who listen so intently. We are always proud of our WorkStory Community.

- Alivia

It’s 5 days until I we walk 21.6 miles of the 5 Valleys walk to raise money for Meningitis Now.

If you are able to donate please do so using think link: https://www.justgiving.com/page/alivia-alice-1691699116585?utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=page%2Falivia-alice-1691699116585&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=pfp-share

All donations are very appreciated!
Redkite Solicitors Ryan Hogarty Alivia McClungAlice Chubb

📣📣📣 ANNOUNCEMENT 📣📣📣

Mark your calendars for our up coming WorkStory events.

This month we have Frank Saliki (Associate CIPD, Author and Speaker) speaking on racism in employment (tickets on sale now).

In October we have the wonderful Julie Kent MBE discussing what it is really like to be a woman in the charity sector.

And in November we have Rt Hon Sir Robert Buckland KBE KC MP speaking on autism in employment and what you can do to help support these individuals.

We are so excited for our upcoming events and will share more details soon.

But for now, tickets 🎟️ for this months WorkStory event where we will hear from Frank are on sale now!

Tickets 🎟️: https://lnkd.in/eWwdPWJM

We hope to see you there.

- Alivia

Ryan Hogarty Alice Chubb Alivia McClung

One of the best parts of having a monthly WorkStory ‘theme’, is coming across different stories and inspirations in my daily and weekend routines, and being able to reflect, learn, and share…

Recently I was in London and stumbled upon The Redemption Roasters, who’s focus on Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion, comes in the form of reducing reoffending through coffee. They provide professional coffee industry training, both inside and outside of prison, with direct pathways to long-term employment.

It’s a really unique and interesting story and I would highly recommend reading into it further, seeing Ted’s unusual entrepreneurial roots materialise into the world’s first prison-based coffee company ☕️

🗓️Today on 5th September 2023 we celebrate the International Day of Charity, and all of the notions of volunteerism and philanthropy, social bonding, inclusion, and resilience which come from it.

The day commemorates the anniversary of the passing of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 "for work undertaken in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress, which also constitute a threat to peace."

Here at WorkStory and within Redkite Solicitors we are lucky to have had the opportunity to connect with a variety of charities, and hear about the personal motivations and stories which fuel research and change in their sectors.

A breakdown of the year so far...

💜In February, we heard from Nick Gazzard at the Hollie Gazzard Trust on masculinity in the workplace, and the story of his daughter Hollie which inspired the charity reducing domestic violence - creating and delivering programmes on domestic abuse and promoting healthy relationships to schools and colleges.

🌊In April, we heard from Sophie Chappell from Life's a Beach: a charity battling the plastic pollution crisis by supporting the eradication of single use plastics from British beaches, and through the promotion of reusable products.

🍎In May, we heard from Tom Herbert and William North at The Long Table, a Community Interest Company fighting food poverty through its community canteen and by working with local producers, communities, and partners, to push towards a better future for people and planet.

🧡Most recently, in August, we heard from Tom Nutt at Meningitis Now who's vision is a future where no-one in the UK loses their life to meningitis and everyone affected gets the support they need to rebuild their lives. We're looking forward to joining them for the at the end of this month 🏃🏽‍♀️

And we are sure there will be more to come!

As always, we encourage you to LISTEN and engage in the personal stories which set the foundation for the charities we think we know, and those we don't. There is always more to learn, and we hope that in putting PEOPLE and their experiences at the forefront, we can better connect and more appropriately show our support - in a way which is meaningful to us as well.

Happy International Day of Charity!

This month's WorkStory event to be announced very soon...

- Alice

Illegitimate parents, corruption and received wisdom.

This was all spoken about in todays networking event where we had the privilege of Tom Nutt from Meningitis Now speaking.

It was very interesting to really deep dive into to how powerful story telling is no matter what your profession. Solictors, Doctors, CEOs, garage owners, etc. The list goes on.

Tom has had many interesting jobs throughout his career which has helped shape the leader he is today!

We are very grateful to Tom and everyone who attended. We love the community that we have created at WorkStory.

The Human Business, who we have formed a partnership with WorkStory are hosting their online networking event on the 12th of September at 4:30pm-6pm. The tickets are FREE and we will provide more information over the coming weeks. The Human Business shares the same values as WorkStory and we would highly encourage you to attend.

- Alivia

30 days from today to Walk And encourage people to Give donations for people affected by meningitis, in support of Meningitis Now!

Willow, Bizzy, and Chase follow in the pawprints and support WAG's nominated mascot Macey, a lurcher who recovered from meningitis herself.

Donations here - https://lnkd.in/eRTTTSjH

We'll be hearing from Tom Nutt from the charity at our WorkStory event on 30th August, so be sure to buy a ticket to hear about his experience with leadership through storytelling and with Meningitis Now. We'll be keen to update everyone on WAG then too!

Tickets here - https://lnkd.in/ex84xi9v

- Alice