#10 Playful connections

Dates Monday 22nd - Sunday 28th September

Summary of the Week

Week full of workshops connecting people together, through play and taking time out to network with fellow entrepreneurs and creatives.

Dot and Dash

Monday at Olympic Legacy Park, a last-minute room change meant rearranging, the flow and design of what I had planned, but the bonus was a large wall for posters. A tiny, flimsy flipchart's are a visual facilitator's worst enemy! Everyone had a great time connecting, finding similarities and differences, and getting to know each other on a deeper level. I set up a spark station to encourage conversations around topics people were passionate about. To enhance the experience, I sourced special name badges designed to suit the occasion. As a facilitator, I often find myself discussing (with other facilitators) the importance of selecting the right name badges for different types of events to ensure they are accessible and functional. Over time, I’ve built a collection of badges from events I’ve attended—let’s call it research!

Draw and Sip networking I found this awesome networking group in Sheffield for creative illustrators and had to join! While I was chatting with a few people, I was secretly being sketched by the amazing Lynne. She does incredible urban sketching, which I'd love to get into more. I brought my iPad to show some of my old sketchnotes, and funnily enough, I ended up sitting right next to someone who was also just getting into it. We were chatting away with all the admin side of things like copyrights, contracts and all the fun things about cleaning up hand drawn visuals to digital. The event is run by AOI Association of Illustrators - it was my second meet up there and great fun connecting over pens, watercolour and inks!

Client meet ups - had a few calls and in person meet ups with some workshops planned in the next few weeks - just writing up some proposals of all the services offered. One is in the bag and the other is just a matter of refining dates and times.

Excellent news on the conference front! I've been selected to co-facilitate two events, which means October is shaping up quite nicely!

Last Friday, I hosted my first public Visual Communication workshop. While I've run these internally when I was at the University, this one was longer and centered on personal sketchnoting. Having practiced this skill for five years, I was keen to share my insights. Attendees received a pack of my go-to mind-mapping pens and explored a variety of other markers.

App Development

Fun stuff is starting to happen on the app! All the data back end is starting to trickle through so now if tap away and ask a questions my data is coming through, although not entirely accurate yet, a few modifications to learn my preferences.

Had my mentoring session today with Trove and I've finally decided niching down on a specific segment of the market. Which means more work on building the community and lots of social media engagement to grow this. I'm going to have to get my head around different social media platforms, start getting the content going in a platform I have decided on - Skool which I am a member in a few communities so I love the interface. I had another thrive session this week and it was so good we ended up having a break and doing another focused hour during that time I managed to get some feedback written up from a workshop.

Meanwhile I am creating up a database of all the links to research and services that I want to have included. Already have a massive list I just need to put it in a way that the data can be pulled.

Past & Upcoming events

I’m hosting: Visual Sketchnoting with two dates in Sheffield 24th October, 28th November and one date in Bristol on the 19th Nov

Facilitate Sheffield on the 16th October, plus facilitating at the Mentor Meet up with Sheffield Digital on the 8th October.

Working with a fellow facilitator for this conference at the end of October https://sustainmidlands.uk/

If you are neurodivergent entrepreneur hop into the community I've just created https://www.skool.com/neurodivergent-entrepreneurs-8159/about

*I've had to put past as it's taken me a while to get these newsletters our with the amount of work I have had on!

Updates on Pacts

PACT 1 Social media (7 days) Posting 7 days straight on Tik Tok - about the community for Neurodivergent entrepreneurs. Totally out of my comfort zone, but it's just learning a new platform.

PACT 2 Mind-Mapping Books (6/52) Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin. Especially as I am building a community!

PACT 3 I will create a weekly sketchnote summary (8/30 days) playing catch up! I'll get this set out later in the week! Sorry subscribers for the bombardment as I try to get back on target.

If you enjoyed this visual sketchletter, I’d greatly appreciate your support in sharing it with your network. If you'd like to stay updated over the coming weeks, feel free to subscribe—it’s completely free!