At 12noon I arrived at the venue in More London for the ceremony. Known for always beeing really early, you might think it a bit excessive as proceedings weren’t due to kick off until 4pm! However, I’m always early to catch a flight due to ‘what ifs’, so this would be no different.
Preparation prevents poor performance, and I was not going to have anything go wrong if I could help it! First hurdle – one of the lights in the room was out and the technicians had to sort it out. Then I was confronted with a three screen facilities – only ever used one! Yikes. I pushed every button before conceeding defeat and calling the av team. A very helpful Nick came down installed the right lead – hiding under the stage!, flicked a switch on the wall panel and the presentation magically appeared on all three screens – as you can see!
The trophies arrived – with one broken – luckily for the one person who couldn’t attend!!!!
Marble plinth with heavy colour glass logo – these are heavy!
By the time the set-up was complete some of the Growing Talent Associates had started arriving!
Of course Reese – now working at MHFAEngland and Mali at Invest In Buy To Let got straight into catch-up mode! Well, it has been a few months since they were on the programme.
Nigel – MD of Harrow Green and Sharon – Executive Assistant came to support all their guys – Jason, Michael Daoud, Joshua, Maxine, Selwyn, Matt, Joshua, Jose, Shanika, Ernst, Kearon, Leighon, and Will now working in a mixture of software assistant, HR, customer service and operations!
Jon Barnes, Head of Building & Technical Services for PwC, opened proceedings. Without Jon’s support there would be no Growing Talent!
Nervously waiting to share a snippet of their experience was Chris from Growing Talent 2 – who since completing has trainined as a MHFA Instructor and now co-delivers this workshop along with creative writing, communication in the workplace and a poetry workshop he has devised.
Jane in the centre from Growing Talent 4, shared her experience from an enthused ‘I’ll try anything and want to learn everything’ outlook to securing a supervisor’s role with Baxter Storey at a new site.
Chelsea who was on programme 6 told how her determination despite her personal circumstance won through especially with the support of her work coach at JobCentre Plus.
Founding directors of Invest in Buy to Let – Selvan and Shane above supporting Mali – now Marketing Manager from Growing Talent 6! Go Mali………….
Small world, Selvan discovered he went to the same school as Anna, one of the leads from Job Centre Plus!
On arriving at work today, Kavita from Growing Talent 3, presented me not only with a lemon and poppy seed muffin – my fav – but also a beautiful bunch of flowers ‘it’s because of you I have the money to do this’ she said – Isn’t that fabulous?
So far 74 people have started Growing Talent. 60 have completed and secured permanent, fulltime jobs.
Growing Talent 8 starts January 2016 in London – contact me for more details.
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