Doing Something Funny For Money

 

 

DOING something funny for money

When I opened a new bank account with Barclays Bank recently, I had no idea of the fun that lay ahead. I love to have fun while working my business and as a self employed work from home mum and grandmum, this is so easy. For most of my working life, I have been self employed and so I set the rules. I enjoy what I do and having fun whilst doing it makes it even nicer. No boss to relate to. No boss to set my hours. I work as and when I want to. I work hard but I also play hard.

Well, on the day I  opened the new account, my new Barclays manager, Wayne Child,  told me about the back to business scheme that Barclays run. The managers are encouraged to go out with a client and spend a day with them in their business. Wayne asked me if I would like to participate in the scheme and I was very keen to take part. When I set the date, I had a client who wanted a video made so thought this might be quite interesting for Wayne to watch. After all, he had told me he didn’t want a boring day in the home office. Unfortunately, my client had to postpone my appointment with her but I decided to keep the date with Wayne.

When I set the date, I hadn’t realised it was Comic relief day. However, it soon occured to me that this was a day that could be a lot of fun and during the day we could do something funny for money. Why ever not?

I checked with Wayne to see if he was prepared for a fun day and he had absolutely no problem with it – in fact he sounded as though it was right “up his street”.

I am, very much a community person and I love to fundraise and encourage my Wightbuzz members to do the same. I spotted an opportunity and ran with it.

I sent out a letter to my Wightbuzz members and was offered raffle prizes. Jade Thornton of Petticoats and Frills offered us a box of red nose cup cakes. She even dressed in red to deliver them to the Wightbuzz office. She was truly embracing the “doing something funny for money” theme.

Cupcakes from Petticoats and Frills

Doing something funny for money - fun cup cakes

Michael of the Dorset House, offered us a Sunday lunch for 2

Dorset House raffle prize

Michael, of the Dorset House, donates Sunday lunch for 2

Susan Revell, also a Wightbuzz member, donated a free first aid course and Jayne Read of Island Memories, donated a family ticket for the VE celebrations being held in May. Claire and Ann of Attraction, a lovely gift shop in Cross Street Ryde, donated a jewellery set. I am very grateful to all these ovely people.

With all these lovely prizes, I knew my super Wightbuzz members would be happy to part with their money.

Before my bank manager came to pick me up, I uploaded a video clip to you tube,

 

My bank manager turned up to pick me up at 9. We needed to decorate the collecting tin and Wayne even obliged with this!

Then, after a quick coffee we were off on the start of our very exciting day. First stop – Jo of Wightcakes

who supplied us with coffee and

scrummy cake! It was going to be one of THOSE days :)

We then popped along to Missy J cafe  where Janine insisted on tweaking my nose before parting with her money – well the theme was doing something funny for money!

Next stop - Wightsight for a quick laugh and joke with Mandy and Adrian who also bought raffle tickets

then a few doors along to Attraction to see Claire, one of the raffle prize donators.

We just HAD to stop at Barclays in Ryde. Well it would be sily not to as I was with my Barclays manager!!

a few more stops in Ryde then we zoomed over to Sandown and to the lovely gift shop Che-Sands

then we popped across to Rapaunui where we also met the lovely Emma from Island Voucher where there was time for a very quick photo call!

then over to recruit Wendy of Deeva into Wightbuzz before selling her raffle tickets too

by the time we got to the wightbuzz office we were really beginning to flag but Liz supplied us with coffee to keep us going

and it was here we stopped to make a couple of video clips about our day.

 

 

and

 

Our final stop was with Julie Jones Evans of Dragonfly i Nodehill – (my fellow shock cash mobber )

We rounded off the day with a lovely sit down and chat with Julie and more coffee and cake!

 

We had a brilliant day – it was manic, it was fun and we did something funny for money. We raised about £75 for comic relief and my Barclays bank manager and I now know each other much better! It truly was a fun day. (I spent the weekend chilling as I was quite exhausted!!)

I did pop in to see Wayne’s boss on Monday to report on what an excellent experience it was! Praise where praise is due. I have had friends, who bank at other banks,  who don’t even know if they have a bank manager, let alone know his name!

I made a you tube clip of the day

Do you have stories to relate about your bank manager? Have you had a fun day out with yours? Pop your comments below :)

 

 

 

 

Phoenix Trading – Business Opportunity

 

 

I am a trader with Phoenix Trading and have enjoyied running my own business from home promoting and selling beautiful greetings cards, wrapping paper and stationery gifts for two and a half years. I am now building a team.

 

 

I look forward to helping others grow their own businesses and looking after any new team members.

Coffee and Shop at Ryde Methodist Church March 2nd

On Saturday 2nd March, I will be running another Coffee and Shop event at Ryde Methdist Church. We have many talented local crafts people and some of these  have booked a stall at this event. We also have people running local businesses so this is a great chance to pop in and support the shop local campaign.

 

See you there.

Ryde Methodist Church, Garfield Road, 10 am – 12 noon

Times Table learning Cube

I am a Primary Stars Advisor (one of my many roles) and when Polly of the Family Directory, asked if I would donate 5 times table learning cubes as prizes to be reviewed, I was more than happy to donate them.

Times table learning cubes and all the other learning cubes are such a fun way to learn.

If you would like more information about the cubes or the the other educational products I promote, then please sign up to my newsletter – 

You can also view the products on the Primary stars website. 

 

Shop Local !

It is with sadness that I read a facebook post this morning that yet another  shop in Ryde is to close it’s doors tomorrow. Julie Jones Evans and I have been leading a cash mob campaign – which is designed to encourage people to shop local .

We were inspired by  fellow top 100 mums club winner  Karen Mercer who had been cashmobbing in Enfield.

Our first cashmob in November was extremely successful. We are continuing to encourage local residents to shop local.

 

 

 

 

We will continue to organise more events across the Isle of Wight. Do you shop local? How important do you think it is to support your local independent traders?

Why the Isle of Wight makes the perfect wedding venue.

The Isle of Wight is the perfect place to stage a wedding. I know! My daughter chose to hold hers here in January 2006. She chose a January day as she didn’t want the unpleasantness of a hot sticky summer’s day. She had her photographs taken on the beach and it looks like it was summer as the sun shone on her and her groom. It was the perfect day after months of planning.

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4 home based businesses – who said it couldn’t be done?

Once upon a time – a business was for life – not so anymore!. Having worked hard in my 30 year teaching career – during which I ran my own nursery for 21 years – I turned to becoming a book lady – selling children’s books via stalls at local events and book parties. When the book company moved the goal posts after I had built my business for 7 years, I decided to leave and then at the age of 58 I had to look for new ways of earning an income. I found other home based businesses and set up several. I decided to spread my eggs into several baskets. There was criticism but at the end of the day – it’s my life and I have to do what’s right for me. What is right for me is not necessarily right for others.

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Coffee and cake

Coffee and cake

I love coffee and cake. Anyone following me on facebook will see that most of my business is done over coffee and cake. Why should that be a problem? Well to me it isn’t. However, there is someone who has a problem with it. That someone , I think, believes I should go suited and booted, clipboard in hand to meet my prospective clients. The truth is, my clients love doing business over coffee and cake. If I were to follow this gentleman’s advice, I wouldn’t be finding my target audience. Read more

Snow time like the present for a photographic opportunity.

My brother Graham Reading is a very talented,  multi-award winning photographer. When the snow arrived, he wasted no time is seizing the opportunity to show off his artistic talent. The photographic opportunity resulted in some stunning pictures which were printed in the Daily Mail. 

Why not check out Graham’s Blog ?