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.

LOOKING FOR AN UNUSUAL VENUE?

For those of you who attended our January meeting, you will know how beautiful the Swarovski Crystallized lounge is, making it a fabulous and unusual venue.

If you are looking for somewhere slightly different in central London to host your event, then you might like to consider Swarovski Crystallized.  Not only can they cater for parties, but they are also able to host breakfast meetings, conferences on a small scale, training sessions and crystal application or jewellery making workshops, with a capacity for 150 standing and 75 sit down.

Opening Hours for hire purposes are 8:00am – 10:30pm, which can be extended on request.

Facilities include:

Swarovski Crystallized Lounge

· Music – Bose sound system - CD, laptop or Ipod which also includes one microphone and one lapel microphone.

· Beaming projector

· Video projector

· Fully functional kitchen

· Coffee machine

· Built showcases

If you are interested in discussing holding your event in this unique space, please contact Carrie Pacquett - carrie.pacquett@swarovski.com or 020 7255 8449.

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.

CHALLENGES - ARE YOU PREPARED FOR 2011?

New Direction Partnership, a networking group based in East London, are hosting some workshops over the coming months to help small business owners to achieve their goals for 2011 and beyond.  It could be that you need additional knowledge to help you grow your business but can't afford the time away from your business or are finding that many courses and workshops just cost too much.

NDP are therefore running a series of short seminars, outside of "normal" working hours (if there is such a thing when you run your own business!) at a really cost effective price. You can pick & choose which workshops appeal to you, or book the complete series for a discounted price.

Do you need some help with marketing your business, or perhaps you need to gain a better understanding of finance? Do you shy away from social media, in spite of knowing what a great marketing tool it can be? Or perhaps you feel that you need to understand how to promote yourself and your business as a "brand".

Some of the workshops on offer are :

Marketing & Selling - looking at the "6Ps" - Planning, Purpose, Promotion, Place, Product & Price............read more

Social Media - what is social media marketing and how do you measure its value to your business? How is social media changing the way small businesses promote themselves on the web? Read on to learn more & book this course.

Effective Networking - we only do business with people we like, know and trust. Come and learn how to build networks to generate referrals and lead to profitable long-term relationships. For further details click here.

That's just a taster of 3 of the 9 workshops which are being held on a rolling basis.. To read further details about each one, plus dates & details of how to book, take a look at the NDP website.

SPARKLE AT SWAROVSKI WITH LWMB IN JANUARY

Happy New Year!



Are you ready to make this the year when your business goes through the roof!

Come & connect with some wonderful women on Thursday 20th January at the first London Women Mean Business networking event of 2011. Take advantage of our special early bird discount and book your ticket now - the early bird price is only available until Monday 10th January so be quick!  Click here to book.

Start off the new year of networking in style in the beautiful surroundings of the Swarovski store right in the heart of central London. Enjoy a glass of bubbly, delicious canapes, interesting conversation and hear from our guest speaker. We're delighted to have Julia Macmillan joining us this month to talk about her experience of setting up an internet business.

Julia is the founder of toyboywarehouse.com, now the top UK dating community for women and younger men.  Having had absolutely no experience in the internet but in 2006 having found the mainstream dating sites lacking, and having had a few good art commissions that year (she was an artist) decided to set up the kind of dating community she would like.  She wasn't aware of problems such as 'how do you start a dating site with only your 10 best friends on it?' There have been ups and down since it went live in Jan 2007 but now she is set for international expansion and will talk about how she got the company to this stage.


And if that's not enough, we also have some fabulous raffle prizes, with all proceeds going to Childreach International.


We hope to see you there.  In the meantime, happy networking!!

SPEAKING UP!

• Does speaking in public worry you?
• Do you feel tongue-tied in meetings?
• Would you like to be able to present and talk with more confidence?

Then Speaking Up! is the course for you!

Kathy Ennis of Envision Training, one of our guest speakers in 2010, is running a one day course in January with a special discount offered to London Women Mean Business.

What would it be like if you had more confidence and the ability to speak and present so that you could easily engage, influence and impact your listeners?

With Speaking Up! you will develop the skills to engage any audience, make more targeted presentations, speak more confidently, influence more persuasively and win more business. You will turn your fear into confidence and doubt into action and you will definitely avoid inflicting death by PowerPoint!

To learn more, or to book your place at the special discounted price, click here.

CELEBRATE THE NEW YEAR OF NETWORKING IN STYLE!

Come and join us for our first event of the new networking year at the Swarovski Crystallized Store in central London.

If you are interested in meeting like-minded business women, wanting to make interesting connections and form new alliances, then come along and network with us in a friendly and supportive environment, while enjoying a glass of bubbly & delicious canapés.

We will be meeting at the Swarovski Crystallized Store opposite Liberty near Oxford Circus. Swarovski have very kindly offered all of our guests a 15% discount on all finished pieces in store on the evening, so come along early so you have time to browse (& purchase) something sparkly! Then join us in the fabulous event space above the store.

Some fantastic raffle prizes will also be on offer, with all ticket proceeds going to the charity Childreach International, so do join us in celebrating the start of 2011!

Just click here to book your ticket. And be quick to take advantage of the early bird price which ends on 10th January!



We look forward to seeing you there.