Category Archives for Member’s Blog

MALMESBURY – new Venue

Such helpful staff at this great venue – The Potting Shed Pub, The Street, Crudwell, Malmesbury, Wiltshire SN16 9EW

Starting 7 October Bookings being taken now, so don’t miss out on this great opportunity to be in brilliant surroundings, growing your business and gaining support from other entrepreneurial business women over a superb lunch

Posted by on 24/09/2010 09:48:03

Stooopid!

Yesterday on Twitter I was called “Stoopid” by David Lee Venters of Croydon who promptly then blocked me from following him!

How interesting I thought!

His observation and posting on his Twitter page was the result of my Tweeting with a PowerPoint tip. So I guess he doesn’t deliver many PowerPoint presentations, and if he does it’s likely to be Death by PowerPoint.

Firstly – how long is the average person’s concentration span? Well it used to be 20 mins, but now with the speed of social media it’s much quicker.

So here’s the thing. You’re given 1 hr to deliver a presentation. Do you deliver death by PowerPoint for 1 hr and have your audience snoozing at around 25 mins in, if not sooner? Or do you break up that 1 hr with a variety of presentation?

In case you can’t think of any alternatives eg alternating between flip chart, whiteboard, PowerPoint, You! And here’s where the PowerPoint Tip comes in.

Sometimes when delivering a PowerPoint presentation you’d like the audience to totally focus on you and not be distracted by anything, including the content of the latest slide. This maybe because you want to emphasise a particular point, you may want to work on the flip chart, you may want to emphasise the impact of the next slide, or you maybe the MC and you’re handing over to the next speaker, whatever the reason this tip is invaluable – it’s so easy!

With the PowerPoint show still open, just press “B” (stands for black, ie black screen) without the quotes, or “W” (stands for white, ie white screen) then when you’re ready, just repeat and you can continue delivering from PowerPoint.

Now who’s stoopid? Not you that’s for sure, because your audience is still listening to you! Just give it a whirl and you’ll see….

Posted by on 07/09/2010 07:50:17

Beckenham meeting 11th August

Just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to Jackie Groundsell for her excellent workshop on “Tabs” before the Beckenham meeting. I use “Word” a great deal and never knew about all the things that you could do with Tabs. If you missed this workshop and Jackie does it again I would really recommend that you go along.

I took my computer with me as I use an Apple Mac and Jackie and the group helped me suss out the differences between a PC and my Mac. I learnt other things too from the group about “Word” too!

Jackie is a great teacher as I went through my lesson the next day and with the notes I had made I was able to recall it all.

So thank you Jackie and thank you also for your great patience with me when I insisted on writing notes during your demonstrations. I was simply keen not to miss anything so I would be able to do it all again on my own.

Paola
www.innerpower.co.uk
paola@innerpower.co.uk
020 8660 6022

Posted by on 13/08/2010 08:05:58

Party season

The dreaded C word will be creeping up on as as soon as the kids go back to school and i have been busy booking parties and events for peeople to get some early christmas shopping in. I’m very excited to be doing some events with BooBoo burlesque as well our products work well together and make for a really fun evening.

Posted by on 13/08/2010 10:37:15

Blacktower Magazine

We are currently producing our third newsletter which is emailed out to all our clients and introducers. If you would like to receive a copy please send me your email address and I will add you to the list. Back copies can be found on our website www.blacktowerfm.com

Posted by on 13/08/2010 15:04:56

Hidden holiday facts

Holidays are something everyone books at work, but there are some surprising legal twists to holidays that you might not know.

1. The boss can tell the staff when they must take leave
Under the Working Time Regulations an employer can require employees to take days of their annual leave by giving notice. There are rules about how long and in what form the notice should be given.

2. Contracts/handbooks can over ride these rules and give bosses additional rights to specify when leave may be taken?
Despite the fact that many staff don’t read their contracts or handbooks, properly written (and issued) contracts can give bosses additional rights

3. A ‘holiday year’ defaults to the anniversary of an employees start date?
If you don’t have any written holiday rules, then each employees ‘holiday year’ starts on the day they started work. It is well worth while having a holiday year so everyone’s leave can be calculated over the same period.

4. The boss has the right to refuse holiday requests for unsuitable dates?
Although bosses can’t refuse all leave requests so that no-one can have any holiday they can say no to dates that are inconvenient, impractical, etc.

5. Staff on long term absence such as extended sick leave and maternity leave continue to accrue holiday while they are away and can carry statutory holiday forward from one year to another if their absence spans a change of holiday year (unlike ordinary staff who lose untaken entitlement at the holiday year end)

Annabel Kaye is Managing Director of Irenicon Ltd, a specialist employment law consultancy. Tel: 08452 303050 Fax: 08452 303060 Website : www.irenicon.co.uk. You can follow Annabel on twitter – http://twitter.com/AnnabelKaye

Posted by on 12/08/2010 10:46:53

1230 High Speed Success and The Stretch Limo

I have just booked for this event Friday 24th September.

I have a “Bucket List” and one of the things I would really like to do is to travel in a Stretch Limo. Is there anyone else who like to join me in this offer as an “add on” to this event, travelling from St Pancras to Victoria Station?

If you would like to do this then please let Jackie know so she can organise it, and then I can cross this off my “Bucket List”.

Thank you, Paola

www.innerpower.co.uk
paola@innerpower.co.uk

Posted by on 12/08/2010 17:54:35

Wimbledon meeting 22nd July

Thanks Liz (Sorton), you ladies made the meeting great! I am already looking forward to the August meeting on the 26th.

Have a wonderful time in France and I look forward to seeing you in September again!

Posted by on 31/07/2010 12:26:21

1230 Wimbledon

Thanks Maaike for a great meeting, met some really interesting ladies, c u again after the summer.

Posted by on 23/07/2010 16:14:00

New ChocoSpell & Organic Fairtrade Belgian Milk Chocolate

Sorry not to have caught up with some of you recently, we’ve been busy printing and wrapping lots of chocolates to finish our last orders before our Summer Holidays but felt we must find the time to send you all a quick update and let you all know about our new Organic Fairtrade Chocolate.

Over the last year, many of our customers and some of you have asked if we could stock Organic Fairtrade Chocolate.

We did listen and have now been able to source delicious Hand Made Belgian recipe Organic Fairtrade Chocolate for our customers and we are very excited to be able to let you know that it has now arrived on our site along with our new ChocoSpell designer gift box!

Do have a look on our site but please note new chocolate orders will be dealt with on our return from our holiday from the 9th August!

Wishing you all a very happy and relaxing Summer Holiday,

Turkey here I come….Emma

Posted by on 13/07/2010 12:38:47