This week was my first week on The Small Business Growth Course run by Aston university. I feel privileged to have been one of the 25 selected for this course that has been funded by the ERDF. Sad that things like this may be lost with Brexit.

This week was an introduction to the course, its tutors and my fellow students and we had to take an object that represented us as a business leader and an object that represented our business going forward.

We started off with tea and chocolate brownies which were nice. Informal chat with fellow students who all seemed lovely. As usual, the females made up a small part of the team – 5 out of the 25. There was a real diverse range of people and businesses represented. Some had been in business many years and others just setting out.

I tried hard to think what object I could take that represented me as a business leader. I was thinking along the lines of working 7 days a week 24/7 and thought calendars, clocks …. but not sure how I could make them represent what I was thinking. It came to me on a drive to work – a double ended candle. I am always being told I burn the candle both ends and never switch off from work so challenged someone to make me a double-ended candle. They did this successfully, so that was my object representing me as a business leader.

Secondly what I chose to represent the future of the business was a picture showing a photograph of my fellow Directors and the staff team that truly are what drive the business forward, represent our ethos and values and build our reputation. Also on the picture was “The Woman Who” award we won last year for the business that gave back to the community and a picture of the “Social Enterprise Mark” accreditation we have just successfully achieved. These really are a representation of how far we have come from two people with a dream of a business.

It was great seeing other peoples objects and hearing a snippet of their journeys. We heard from some of the tutors, Course Director Paula Whitehouse and from Sandra Green from Co Wheels in Birmingham who had completed the course previously.

Had a break for tea with more lovely cake….the fruit cake and lemon drizzle cake was amazing! (Worth going just for the cake!!)

It was a brilliant day and so looking forward to working with all these inspirational people and gaining the knowledge to take Appoint Us Forward.