Fun in the Sun!

I can't believe where the week has gone! Or how the weather keeps changing!

This time last week, Wendy and I were at a polo game, which was a first for us both.

We were invited by one of our friends, a lovely lady called Katherine Seal of Seal Events who was sponsoring the event. She also provided lovely food through her other company Limefooddesign.co.uk.

We met up with another of our good friend's Kelly Stevens of the thewomensnetworkingcompany.co.uk. and Wendy and I had no idea what to expect.

I was pleasantly surprised that the game was very entertaining, particularly when the horses came thundering past within feet of where we were sitting. The rules completely escaped me, however, one of the players told me that it was similar to the rules of the road, and involved hitting the ball down the line on the right...so that helped!

I was driving on the day, so I was not drinking, which meant Wendy could! Bless her by the end of the day, the sun had got to her, as she was feeling slightly wobbly and by the time she got home, distinctly unwell! AW alright, she had a little too much to drink! However, she is always good for a laugh,even when sober just more so, when a little inebriated!! As you can see from these pictures, we all had a fantastic time! Although whether Wendys' head realised that once she got home......

If you ever need catering for a corporate or social event or want to organise a corporate event, then Katherine is the person to contact.

And if you are in business for yourself and want a great networking group - check out the womensnetworkingcompany, as Kelly keeps the meetings lively by inviting interesting guest speakers!

As regards the polo day - I think it is well worth going along and just giving it a go! I had made it part of my personal goals to attend all the social events in the summer, and this is just another tick in the box!!

Bank Holiday Weekend in the sun!

Hello again!

I regularly update my blog with some of the things that Wendy and I get up to and this weekend we have had a fabulous time!

Wendy, for those of you who do not know, is a Reiki Master, and one of the groups she belongs to decided that they would have a stall at the Thai Festival Weekend, which was being held in the Secretts Garden centre in Milford, Surrey, and was organised by The Mudita Trust Charity, raising finance to help educate girls from some of the poorest areas. It also coincided with the 80th birthday of King Bhumibol, the King of Thailand, so yellow was a bit of a theme!

I have to be honest, on the first day, when we arrived, neither Wendy or I held out much hope of it being very busy - and how wrong we were!! It was packed solid all weekend! Apparently they expected over 50,000 visitors - that's how wrong!

Everyone was in really good spirits and very friendly. There were numerous stalls, a very large number selling Thai food (which just made our mouths water, although niether of us indulged, as result of a bit of a health drive at the moment!). There was a stage, where different Thai dancing, martial arts etc were performed and I have to say the costumes were dazzling!

The stand we were on, was organised by Jill Roberton and Diane Betts, who gathered together a group of therapists offering neck and shoulder massage, reiki, infinite balance and hand reflexogy.

We both worked on the Saturday morning and the Monday afternoon, and it was only when we got home we realised how tired we were - and some of the girls (and lad!) had been there the whole weekend, they must have been exhausted! It is not so much that we were physically running around, but for anyone who has been on an exhibition stand - constantly talking and smiling with strangers,takes it out of you.

Still, Wendy and I know that things like this are a great way to network and get your business known to even more people, and as we were allowed to put out our brochures, it made it even more worthwhile. I know Wendy managed to hand her business card out to at least 2 people!

Well worth helping out and a great time was had by all!! And I would highly recommend watching out for the next one!

Netwalking - The highs and lows!

Last week Wendy and I went on a country walk in Guildford with a crowd of people.

Wendy and I are members of an online community called Ecademy, and one of the groups led by Tom Evans and Jenny Littlejohn, run a networking meeting with a difference!! A Netwalk!

The idea is that you walk and talk and build relationships whilst you do so. It is a great way to get out and about, exercise, meet new people and old friends.

We met in a country pub near Shere, and walked through the Surrey Hills for about an hour and a half and although is was raining, everyone had a great time!

As I had just returned from holiday, Wendy and I managed to talk the whole time (no change there then!) and to catch up on everything that had been going on.

Unfortunately, I did not take in too much of the scenery as I was too busy watching my feet to make sure that I did not fall over (one broken foot is enough for anyone!) which was a bit of a shame as the Surrey Hills are beautiful.

By the time we got back to the pub, we were soaked through. Most of us had hair stuck to our heads, very muddy boots and trousers soaked up past our knee caps, however, Wendy seemed to come off worse.

Her trousers were ruined, they were not only very wet, but they were also ripped, as she had caught them on a branch on the way round, so when it came to going home, she decided that she would take them off and drive home in her underwear!

We joked briefly about what she would do if she was stopped on the way home and she said it was unlikely.....However, about 5 minutes into the journey, I get a call from Wendy. "You'll never guess what?" she said. "what" I replied. "My petrol light has come on and I might have to stop to fill up!" It was so funny, I could barely see where I was driving for the tears of laughter!!

Anyway, I followed her back as far as Farnham, after which she assured me she would make it home - thank goodness!

The moral of the tale? Make sure when you are going on a walk, dress appropriately and make sure you have a spare set of clothes in the car!!

Kids with Confidence & Motivation!

Wendy and I were really fortunate to be asked to run a workshop on Confidence and Motivation for youngsters between the ages of 12 and 16, recently - and boy did we learn lots!

Hart Development Centre are running a pilot project called "The Get With it Project" which has been set up to get youngsters off the street and to do something interesting over the summer holidays. In particular, it is aimed at combating antisocial behaviour in a positive way by providing activities such as sports tournaments, ceramic painting, health and beauty and team building games.

We had already run one workshop last year for a group of people who had been long term unemployed and obviously, we have kept in touch, as it is a great way to do something worthwhile with the skills and talents that we have, so when Wendy and Cheryl discussed this, it seemed like a great idea!

And it was! I was a little concerned over the age range (12 year old boys and 16 year old girls - big difference in what would keep them interested, as we found out!), however, we managed to choose some great exercises that meant that everybody in the room could get something from - we did a creative exercise, a physical one, one that tested the "little grey cells" and one where everyone had an opportunity to participate - a panel of "experts" taken from the group who were there to answer questions, and let me say now that some of the questions were very though provoking - such as why adults demand respect, and don't always show it?

The feedback we got was tremendous, in that Cheryl said that she was impressed how they all became engaged and how they concentrated for so long.

So what did we learn from that day - as they were as much our 'teachers' as we were theirs? Well that treating these young people like adults, tends to encourage them to behave like one. That they were still very open to puzzles like the 9 dot exercise and solved it much faster than some adults, who naturally over time become more fixed in their way of looking at the world. That anyone with the responsibility of keeping 30+ youngsters entertained needs a medal - it was exhausting!

Fab!

Confidence - Up Yours!

We had one of our Life Design evenings in Guildford last night - in conjunction with Ecademy - and what a turnout! Over 30 people in a room created quite a buzz I can tell you!

The topic this quarter was confidence, so we looked at the meaning of confidence, how it affects us and what we can do to help ourselves! The group were fantastic and came up with some great stuff and really threw themselves into the various exercises.

As always, once the session was finished, many stayed on to continue chatting to each other, and we finally finished by 10pm! Phew!

We were lucky to have the whole event filmed by Pete Hansford of Brevity Productions and we are now waiting for the edited version so that we can put it on our website - so if you have ever wondered what goes on at these evenings, check out online!

What a week that was!

Well things are ramping up here at Relish HQ!

I have been very busy with our PR & marketing, publishing articles on various websites, following up with press releases on activities that we have gotten involved with and I believe we are starting to see the results!

We have been asked back by the team at Ladies First on County Sound 1566mw and our next appearance is on the 6th August - listen out for us then!

We were called by the Farnham Herald and interviewed about the business and Wendy got her name in the August edition of Psychologies magazine.

In addition to this, we have revamped the Community Events into Life Design Evenings which are going to be bite sized courses on the key life topics that we can cover!

Already our Guildford event is a sell out, and we had fantastic feedback from our Berkshire event - Come on Basingstoke! We have one next week and only 2 people booked on it!

We have a number of other things in the pipeline and it is all very exciting, our real difficulty is making sure that we keep the day to day stuff ticking over!

Of course when faced with all this, the best thing is to ride that wave, and pace yourself - I am learning!

Check our our website to see some of the changes that are taking place!

www.relishpeople.co.uk

LBC & Sparks Charity Event

As some of you know, Wendy does a guest spot on the Jim Davis show at LBC every 6 weeks or so, as their Life Design Expert.

Jim is one of the committee members for Sparks, The children's Medical Research Charity and asked whether we would be interested in going along - it was held at the Guildhall in London, a fantastic place, although for us non city dwellers, a bit of a challenge to get to!

We set out in good time, and yet the map let us down somewhere around Bloomsbury Square, so we abandoned the car in favour of a taxi, as we were running late, and had already missed the champagne and canapes!

We arrived at the same time as Bobby Davro and friend, and found ourselves right near the front, on the table with other committee members Natalie Pinkham (Channel 4's Adrenalin Rush presenter) and Giles Vickers-Jones (presenter of ITV at the Movies for ITV1 and ITV 2) with Robert Powell (the actor)the charity's President on the next table - so we did really well!

There was a fashion show and live auction, at which one of the prizes was to appear on This Morning. Fortunately for the Relish bank balance, not only was my bid exceeded, but Wendy wasn't paying any attention! The amount raised that evening was in excess of £50,000, which was fab!

It was all over by 10.30pm, and Wendy and I then set off in search of the car, and to make our way home. However, by this time, I was hungry again (always the same when I have a late night!) and I think we stopped at every Macdonald's on the way home in search of something quick and easy to eat - and no joy! We ended up outside Fleet Station buying a kebab to have once we got to Wendy's...and boy was it great!

I finally got home at 3am, exhausted, but having had a really good evening!