Today we went before the judging panel of Woman Who 2017. We watched the hail and rain teeming down outside our office and turned the heating up as we were all freezing! Whilst eating crumpets and drinking coffee, we discussed what we could possibly tell the judges to impress them about Appoint Us, about being a Community Interest Company and what that meant to us, the difficult journey we had come through since winning in 2016 but above all why and how we are still here and all that we have learned along the journey.

We were given a tick analogy to being in business and how you sometimes sink but come up the other side again. That’s what the year has been like for us. Positively we have this year though been recognised on the Government CIC regulator website, achieved the accreditation of Social Enterprise Mark, had a brilliant article printed in the Emergency Services Magazine and received our first two donations by being recognised as a Community Interest Company. One from the Coventry Charity Cup and one from Cadburys.

The time came to leave the office, umbrellas and big coats and off to Coombe Abbey.

As we arrived the rain stopped and a glimmer of sun peeped through the clouds. Judges were running late and so we managed to have a lovely lunch in the Garden Room. No tummies rumbling in the arena! Photoshoot from Linda Scannell photography and we were called in. It felt like we had just arrived when Sandra knocked on the door indicating time was up. We hope we managed to get in all we have learned this year, we feel we have “grown up” as a company and have a clearer direction….we have real life case studies and photos to share in our marketing, we are learning to delegate, to take risk and most of all to shout about our wonderful organisation, the wonderful work we do, our great staff team and educating people to know that by using us they too are giving back to our local community. Paul Ian Emma and Sharon thank you for listening to our story. Now its fingers crossed until May. The results aren’t announced until May 5th at The Woman Who dinner. Julie, unfortunately, can’t attend and so Fiona and Felicity have promised a facetime connection! We are keeping everything crossed.