SPARKLING!

A roomful of sparkling ladies attended the first LWMB meeting of the year which took place at Swarovski Crystallized on Thursday 20th January.

Julia Macmillan

The bubbly flowed, the food was delicious, the company was wonderful and our guest speaker, Julia Macmillan, gave a fantastic talk about her experience in setting up her internet business, Toyboy Warehouse. Of course, for those interested in learning how to find a toyboy, there was ample time for a chat with Julia after her talk!!

Julia is a former fashion designer and artist, and began Toyboy Warehouse following a successful art commission, having discovered that she couldn't find what she was looking for on "traditional" dating websites.  From starting the site with open source software, and a group of friends as her members, she has now grown the business to a point where she is talking to investors and is about to launch internationally.  The ideas that Julia used in growing her business can be readily applied to most businesses - find a unique name that gets people talking; in addition to contacting newspapers etc, build relationships with freelance journalists so that they call upon you as an "expert" in your field; ensure you have a targetted (not Adwords) Facebook campaign if you have a digital business; offer added value eg. Julia now has a VIP section, hosts member events and a dining society and is planning to launch an online game.

Thank you Julia for giving your time to share your experiences with us.

Drawing the raffle

Congratulations to those of you who won a raffle prize - we hope you enjoy making use of the gifts on offer which ranged from a £100 Jaeger voucher, a bottle of Bollinger Champagne, to a relaxing floatation session, a massage treatment and a £500 voucher to spend at a hair & beauty salon.  And a special thanks to Cory Cook who offered half a day of her services in time management or organising your life.  Your generous donations mean that we raised £110 pounds for the charity Childreach.

Thanks are also due to our photographer for the evening.  You may have noticed Claire Swindale clicking away in the room.  Claire is an experienced photographer who has worked with such brands as Revlon, and we were delighted to have her with us on the evening.  Her photos of the evening are now on our gallery, and there is a separate blogpost about Claire with further details of her work, her special offer to LWMB and an invitation to her "meet the artist" day at her exhibition in March.

And finally, a thank you to Carrie and all at Swarvoski Crystallized who were wonderful to work with.  Several women in the room disappeared downstairs to the shop during the evening returning with a Swarvoski Crystallized bagful of goodies.  And who can blame them, with a 70% sale, or the LWMB 15% discount on non-sale goods to take advantage of!!

Thank you to all of our guests who made the evening so successful.  We hope you enjoyed it and look forward to seeing you again soon.

A PHOTOGRAPHER WITH A DIFFERENCE - CLAIRE SWINDALE

If you were at the January meeting of London Women Mean Business, you may have noticed a photographer in the room clicking away unobtrusively so that we could have a reminder of the evening.  Thank you to Claire Swindale for agreeing to be our "official" photographer for the evening, we really appreciated it.  Here's a little more info about Claire, and details of a special offer for LWMB.

Claire started her career in advertising as an Account Handler and Creative, her ultimate achievement being the design, implementation and launch of the first 5 years of Happy Meals and merchandising for McDonald's UK. Thereafter, whilst still in the world of advertising and media, for 8 years she concentrated on travelling the world with her backpack and camera. There was never a lightbulb moment, she always had a camera: Her talent and interest in photography simply grew.

Her decision to brave it into the freelance world was encouraged when she was part of the first wave of redundences at The Independent Newspaper nearly 3 years ago. She never looked back.

Claire currently has an exhibition at Tentazioni Restaurant in Shad Thames showcasing a selection of personal favourites and demonstrates her ease at capturing both beauty and finite details of her subjects and locations. 

Claire's portfolio includes stills from the last 3 Rimmel London commercials, with a fourth pending ... an extensive library ... obviously travel (which expands from Europe, Africa, through to Asia, particularly her favourite, Nepal!) The place of smiley places and smiley faces! She also attends casual family gatherings and childrens parties, anniversaries, 'big' birthdays where clients can relax, have fun and laugh, whilst Claire captures the moment. Her studio work is really evolving and is shown off in her Beauty and The Basque category showing at Tentazioni.

From portraits, weddings, film commercials ... through to her art and her recently launched bespoke luxury wooden puzzles (view and purchase these via her website)... she is equally inspired!

Claire's ambition is to continue to enjoy the expansion of her business, which, she says does not feel like business at all but pure joy to be doing something that she loves so much. Visit her current portfolio on www.claireswindale.com and facebook 'Claire Swindale Photography' and become her friend ....... and see for yourself.

Claire’s offer to you is a studio session for headshots for your marketing material, whether it be for your website, Linked-In, Facebook etc .. she will supply you with a disc holding a variety of images in colour and black & white, for just £85.

info@claireswindale.com
http://www.claireswindale.com/
07747 567 732
Facebook: Claire Swindale Photography

Claire's exhibition can be viewed at :

Tentazioni Restaurant
2 Mill St
Lloyds Wharf
SE1 2BD

Claire is having a 'meet the artist' event on 11 MARCH 2011, 3-7pm.  Everyone is invited to have a Prosecco, view the artwork, meet the artist.  Spread the word and bring your friends.