Hello Venusians, welcome to my second newsletter, boy time really does fly when you’re having fun! Hasn’t the weather been atrocious recently – I’m so happy to be living on the boat, at least if it floods I know my home will float!

My work life balance battle continues although I do think I’m getting on top of it. Sometimes though even lying on the couch on a Sunday afternoon I can’t stop thinking about Venus – I seem to have great ideas either then or dog walking!

So what have I been up to?

The last month saw me down in Christchurch catching up with the Regional Management Team and setting a plan in place for the next twelve months. As well as that I’ve been working with the Academy Managers and Facilitators and working through an Academy programme for each region. If you’re not sure what is going on drop your VRM an email, alternatively keep an eye on the calendar on the website or on the local events.

Latterly I’ve been spending my time in Auckland getting a lot of the ‘behind the scenes’ stuff sorted and working on phase two of my cunning plans!

Venus Academy

As I said in my last newsletter in each of the Regions I’ve also appointed an Academy Manager, Maree Bryant will be managing the South Island, Paula Kruger the wider Wellington Region, Linda Crosbie, Waikato, and Kelly McFarlane the Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay and Auckland Regions.

In case you’ve missed the Facebook announcements thus far; in Wellington our Academy Facilitators are Paula Kruger, Martine Carroll and Mary Long; Waikato we have Jennifer Myers (who will also cover the Bay of Plenty) and in Auckland, Becs Peacocke, Mandy Beverley and myself thus far. South Island and Hawkes Bay keep your eyes peeled as I hope to be making some announcements soon!

If you’re unaware of exactly what we offer, go to the Academy website and you’ll see the six month programmes listed there. Additionally, we’re planning to revive the Selling, Networking, Marketing and Presenting workshops into a one day format as we’ve had a lot of interest and enquiries from members.

Venus Events/Workshops

We are in the process of resurrecting the Venus After 5’s in each region. A Venus After 5 is a networking event sponsored by a member. Usually, it involves members going to their business, they put on some drinks and nibbles and we do some networking and then spotlight our sponsors business. We have our first one in Auckland at the beginning of May at KPMG which I’m really looking forward to.

We are working on VA5’s in the other regions if you want to find out more please drop us an email.

Additionally, you will notice Member Success, Power Hours, Collaborative Teams and Speed Networking events being advertised, if not already, fairly soon in each region. Get along to these, it’s an excellent way to meet women in the wider region and networking with them outside your group environment. The more people who know about you and vice versa the better! Public events are on website Eventbrite tab and member only posted in your Regional Facebook group.

Venus Charitable Status

This is proving to be a very interesting process. I’ve had my second meeting with the lawyer and now I’m putting together a constitution for Venus moving forward. This is a legal requirement and sets out what our goals are as a business. Our charitable status needs to be approved by the Courts and Inland Revenue (bless them!) and can take up to six months.

Once I have the constitution in place I will be able to have some serious discussions with potential Board Members and give them a better idea of what they are potentially committing to.

I’m quite enjoying the process as I’m learning a lot along the way by working alongside the lawyer and doing the ‘grunt work’ in order to keep the bill down!

Hopefully, by next month we’ll have pulled it all together and submitted it for approval … watch this space!

Venus HQ

The second month of Venus ownership has gone past in a flash. As you will see we’ve been working very hard behind the scenes doing the rebranding –please bear with us in the short term as there is a lot of documentation and other stuff that needs the branding updated but we’re all working as fast as we can. Thank you also for such wonderful positive feedback – makes it all seem worthwhile. You will see all the Facebook groups have also had their banners updated – and Lindsey Carroll has painstakingly worked through updating everything for me on the website as well. Jeanette Miller has in the meantime been very busy processing Facilitator changeover, as you can imagine with 50 groups there are over 200 changes to be made as well as Facilitator handbooks etc. to be sent out. Both Jeanette and Lindsey have really gone above and beyond the call of duty over the last month trying to get everything just so which I really do appreciate. Thank you, ladies! x

Well ladies, that’s me for this month. I’m looking forward to Easter and a good break … perhaps I might even try to sleep in one or two days!

Unfortunately though, having a 6 month old puppy is like having kids. Tilly is ‘up and at em’! at the crack of dawn, if it’s light she’s up if it’s not she’ll stand on me and lick me until I move – not one of her more endearing traits! I often look at her and think wow, if we all approached life the way she does the world would be a great place. She goes a million miles an hour at everything, is always happy and gets so much enjoyment out of it, it’s lovely to see (she also embarrasses me in public by licking inappropriately and chasing her tail but we won’t concentrate on that!)

Loving my job and being part of a community of like-minded business women who support, motivate, encourage, learn and grow. We can help each other as individuals but as a community, we can do so much more! Watch out world!

 

Until next month my gorgeous gals! x

Carolyn

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