Career.
That's our theme for this year with my networking group - Cambridge Women in Construction.

I'm starting by reminding myself what a 'career' even is.  Wikipedia has a wonderful insight into the blurred definitions.  It opens with:

Career is an individual's metaphorical journey through learning, work and other aspects of life.

What I lurve about this, is that it includes learning and 'other aspects of life'.  It emboldens me to think I could see some of my life experiences as part of my overall career, rather than a series of blind alleys or misadventures.

I spent nearly 7 years learning and working in film and tv, some of that time working in architectural practices at the same time to supplement my income.   I even have my own IMDb page !

State of Play was an intense shoot with lots of night filming.  It wasn't particularly challenging from an art director's point of view as it is modern day and most of my other work was period dramas. So many of the cast continued into bigger and brighter productions however, and my reflections are mostly on the social melting pot of a film shoot and how I learned when to stay in the background and when to assert myself.





More recently my learning and other aspects of life have been to do with child development, child psychology and the impact of trauma on, well, everyone.  I hadn't thought of this as part of my career but it might be useful if I did.  While I like a separation between work and home - one gives me a break from the other - like so many people working part-time, I mostly just feel inadequate and behind in both.  I wonder, if one were to look for the cross-overs between the 2 worlds one could see the time spent in one being of useful benefit to the other.

What might those cross-overs be?

• patience, listening, resilience 
• needs of families, asking the difficult questions: although each family is unique there are many considerations when making changes to houses where children live when they, and the family dynamics, will all change immensely in a few short years
• need for space in families - space to be alone, space to be together, space to store stuff

I'm inspired.  I don't know whether there is 'work' that might come from developing these cross-overs but it's interesting to think there might still be something that feeds 'my career' .

Woops - that must have been 2018

Aha - a whole year and no blog post...yet, I achieved so much.

Let's see:

• Planning permissions x 2 in the Cambridge City Centre Conservation Area
• Planning permission for another new house in North Cambridge and very nearly a second, we are just negotiating on amenity space.
• Completion of a whole house refurbishment and loft conversion
• Near completion of an extension to 18th century listed cottage
• Coordination and start of construction of city centre refurbishment and extension
• A couple of design schemes and another one pending

All eclipsed by the personal achievement of an extension to our own home and the reality of living through the build rather than being able to drop in and out.

Separate to all that qualifies as 'work', I also kept up the CWIC group which now has a lovely core group of regulars - we even managed a corporate style trip to Brands Hatch which was thrilling!

Not to mention cementing some friendships through some difficult times, mine and theirs, shepherding a volatile son from primary school to secondary school and mastering a 'downward dog' .

And the plan for 2019?

• honing my expertise in domestic architecture
• surfing the Brexit waves
• bringing CWIC into the light
• guiding another child into secondary school
• running a 10k

Happy New Year

It's cold and pouring outside and it's the beginning of June.

It's the week after 'half term'. 

It used to annoy me greatly when parents I worked with talked about 'half term' as if I, a non-parent, should also have this week in my diary: a period not to arrange meetings or expect replies to urgent emails.  Now I do it too, and I push through that week, working and parenting like trying to do a full length underwater. 

This week I have re-surfaced but, inevitably, I am still some way from the end of the pool.

I am trying to hold on to all the Good things I have done even if at the same time there are things I could have done better but honestly, I feel rather drained.

Three of my projects are on site at the moment.  They are all domestic projects and range through small alterations, extensive refurbishment to completely new build.  In my role as architectural designer I guide my clients through the new, unsettling, expensive building process and do my best to mediate all the new relationships with consultants, contractors, inspectors and all.  Good design isn't enough anymore, one needs to be able to listen, empathise, communicate and problem solve. 

Sometimes I really do feel their pain, their frustration.  I wonder over everything and think what I could have done better.  I feel a bit sick.  This is all part of my job and if I'm tempted to feel down about it, it occurs to me that it is part of a lot of people's job. 

Later today I'll have a regular meeting with a social worker, she faces even more critical and personal crises in people's lives every day.  The police officers and investigators of counter terrorism under scrutiny in the news today have to find a way of coming to terms in their own minds with the course of events that form their daily work. Our church minister is off on sabbatical to 'top up' his emotional well being.  How do they manage? Working on my own I recognise I am vulnerable to a slef-doubting chatterbox in my head. Sometimes I find myself longing for a job with no human interaction - is there such a thing?

Mental health has had a high profile recently and rightly so but I'm wondering if the thing that needs our attention, perhaps as a preventative measure to mental health problems, is emotional health.  We know we work long hours, we know that with email, smart phones and flexible working our jobs weave into our personal lives more than ever. What tricks and tools do we have to protect our personal emotions from emotional work?

As you might guess, writing this little piece has been one of those tools for me.  I know that human interaction, while challenging, also gives me a buzz in my job: I love searching out the vision in a client's head and translating it into a possibility, I love a banter with a builder on top of scaffolding or winning over a planning officer with a careful, respectful telephone conversation.  I'm going to look for some more emotional protection though - the PPE of the solo consultant and I think I might start with my lovely network and find myself a mentor, then I can enjoy the swim!

Extending and Altering - first thoughts

I recently presented 3 design solutions to a young couple for alterations and extension to their Victorian semi-detached house in Cherry Hinton.

We met in a coffee shop on Mill Road in Cambridge and on the way I cut through the cemetery, glancing up at the backs of the same era of semi-detached houses as theirs.

Victorian terrace - rear view

It was clear to me that we could have walked along together and picked their options from the selection of box dormers, extended side returns, garden rooms and infills on display just in that row of houses.  I thought about all the rear elevations of all the Victorian streets in Cambridge and then I thought about all the housing in Cambridge in general.  I thought about all the people, like my clients, wanting to live in the city and trying to find the balance between fitting their lives to the house they have and the house to the lives they want.

Victorian houses are well over 100 years old.  They were built without central heating, without insulation, without bathrooms and without electricity (see this article on the history of electric lighting).  When we build on to these houses we work to all the current Building Regulations so these drafty, heat emitting houses can have super efficient nodules bolted on.  I've never questioned the principle of this but looking at that row of houses I couldn't help thinking this is all just lip service to any idea of improving our housing.

What will these streets look like, how will they fit people's lives and the demands of the environment in the next 100 years?  What would it take for us to knock any of them down?  Now, I am doing similar work for folks living in early 20th century houses, inter-war houses, post war houses...the youngest one would be a 1980s house, the oldest is a listed 17th century cottage.  I'm not saying we shouldn't be altering our houses - I'd be out of work for a start - but I am questioning the bigger picture.  At the same time as commissioning my design solutions for their current house, my Cherry Hinton clients have been looking at newly built houses as an option.  Sadly they cannot find anything they feel would suit them as a family.

I was moved to trawl the bookshops of Cambridge yesterday in search of the history of the city's development.  (It's a challenge, I tell you, the glare of Cambridge University seems to bleach out any sense of the city around it.) I want to understand the chronology of house types and relate it to the social norms of the time.  I'm hoping, then, to reflect on our 'way of living' today and our expectations of our houses given that most of them were built for a different 'way of living'.

Somewhere in me I am wondering if it's the house or the living that has to change.

Studio Hobohm initial design proposal for rear extension and loft conversion...to be continued.

It's December 2016.

This has been such a challenging year for me personally and such an unsettling year for everyone.

Whatever your politics you cannot deny the rumbling of change coming.  I picture a kind of giant theatre stage with automated backdrops, revolving centre pieces and disappearing props, or a child's puzzle that you fold and fold to reveal a new picture out of the old one.

Ordinarily change excites me but the off-shoots from this scene-change leave me sad and fearful.  I have been searching myself to think how to come to terms with this.  Carrying on regardless seems an obvious choice.  What, after all, is actually different for me this December to last December?  My business is thriving.  I need staff to manage the growing demand and Cambridge feels like it has it's own bubble of enterprise and wealth.  Yet an Asian family round the corner had their taxi set on fire a couple of months ago.  My skin colour, my education, my wealth and my nationality might mean I don't experience any changes but that doesn't mean they are not happening.

I have a major anti-establishment-hippy streak in me which wants to run for the hills, live off the land and every other isolating, self enhancing cliche you can think of.  I remember a conversation with a Buddhist about what he would do to prevent war and his answer was to meditate.  It was a lovely idea to think that in some way his calmness would radiate around him and permeate to the next person who in turn would sit down and meditate, spreading the rings of calmness a bit further, until we were all sitting down and being calm and there was no longer any conflict. I got it, sort of, but I'm not able to believe in it.  It's not me.  I'm a do-er.

So it is events like our last CWIC meet-up of the year yesterday which give me hope and belief.  The 'global situation' is simply too big.  I like to think locally, community, one to one.  Our group is not a game-changer but it is just one example of how people can bond with one thing in common - being women in the construction industry - and then reach out across so many differences.  We were polite, friendly, welcoming, interested, interesting, funny and supportive with each other.  This is what the world needs.  Thank you everyone.

CWIC End of Year Lunch - Sponsored by Vinci Construction at the Burleigh Arms, Cambridge

In my lifetime I have experienced global transitions that as a child seemed set in stone.

I learned about the inequality and injustice of apartheid in South Africa, I knew the song "Free Nelson Mandela" without knowing his story and I thought all I could do was not eat South African apples to express my opinion.

I learned about the World Wars, the Berlin wall, the cold war, the communist system meant to make everyone equal but needing so much oppression and restriction to do it.  I know Sting's song "Russians", I bought the 45".

I learned about homosexuality and about AIDS.  I heard about people dying, horribly, from a sexually transmitted disease which threatened everyone and which blew away the sniggers, the jokes about 'puffs', the teenage confusion of innuendo and got us talking openly, respectfully.   I cried and worked and cried again at my drawing board as they played every Queen song on the radio the day Freddie Mercury died.


I know none of these things are 'resolved'.  I know they give way to new issues but why did these changes touch me?  Me, a straight, white, British girl.

A straight, white, British girl spending 7 years of her childhood in North African and Middle Eastern Countries: learning about, experiencing and trying to understand people's differences. Seeing black flags over buildings for murdered Palestinians, hearing one thing and then another about Israel, about Iran, Iraq. We called ourselves ex-pats, my Dad (or the company he worked for) sold his engineering skills to build roads and sewage treatment plants.  I was taught in an 'English' school.  In my senior 2 class I was one of 2 white kids.  When we came back to England the girls in my new school said I could be their friend but I wasn't to talk about my time abroad.

I am a citizen of the world.  Those global transitions touch me because great groups of people, different people, have come together as one to make them happen.

There is such power in unity.

I am a citizen of the world and I am European.  There are, and have always been, forces tearing us apart - religion, prejudice, inequality.  The rallies and marches can be beginnings and then the nitty gritty of getting on goes on. It's not straight forward, it isn't perfect and not everyone will be happy all the time but it is about getting in a room together, talking, listening and having a go.

So I was crying over my laptop this morning, not my drawing board, with the pictures of the vigil in Soho for the Orlando shootings.

Look how a community which crosses borders, religions, races, genders can stand together.

And I cried again when I saw the latest EU referendum polls and read Polly Toynbee's article on what renewed suspicion, prejudice and segregation we could face whatever the result next Thursday.

I vote for the UK to remain in Europe with all my heart.

Why do I do this?

Last month was the first time I really didn't feel like going to the CWIC lunch...the one I instigate every month as part of the "Cambridge Women in Construction Network".

I had been feeling pulled in all directions all week.  I was tired and I was dreaming of utopian worlds where I didn't need to work but I still felt stretched and challenged, where my children appreciated what I do for them and where health, weight and aging issues took care of themselves.

Luckily someone came to the lunch who had not been before - as happens most months - and asked about the history of what we did.  I found myself going back over why I had started the idea of Cambridge Women in Construction in the first place and this has fed into my ideas of where to go next.

The crux has always been about knowing women exist in the construction industry.

I have a pet grumble which is the disappearance of women's history in general.  It means generation after generation a girl or woman feels like she is being ground-breaking if she does something, let's say, non-standard, in her life.  A woman, somewhere, has already done just about everything there is to do at some point in history but her story gets forgotten.

I don't believe it matters whether we have 50/50 men and women in every job.  I do think it's a problem when there is a substantial decline in the number of women working compared to studying or qualifying within a profession.  I also think men and women communicate, prioritise and rationalise differently and those differences need to be understood when there is a workplace gender imbalance.  This is undeniably the case in the construction industry.

What I have learned in the 4 years of get-togethers and communication with women in the CWIC circuit is this:

• we like knowing a female work-specific group exists, even if we don't feel the need to engage
• we like sharing common experiences, challenges, frustrations.
• we like to be informal, we can be direct, open and honest in an all female environment in a way which is sometimes surprising, often refreshing, even a relief

but

• we will not prioritise any of this over our work, family or other life commitments
• we are not good at properly introducing ourselves, asking each others' names or getting contact details 
• we do not exploit contacts within the industry in the way our male colleagues do

So...as well as knowing we exist, CWIC meet-ups have the potential of all of the above...in theory.

But to be honest it's all a bit hit and miss.  Many people only come once.  Many people thank me, many say they have really enjoyed coming.  I get lots of apologies for not coming when I send out reminders to over 80 women but rarely an "I'll be there".  I feel that calling CWIC a 'network' is a  misnomer.

I wish I could do more to organise, inspire, connect and engage with the women I email every month but I am struggling as it is. There are dozens of local women in business/entrepreneurs/technology groups and it's tempting to redirect people to one of these.

We women in construction are as diverse in personalities as our jobs demand - some of us are quiet observers, some of us are dynamic job-getters, some sticklers for detail, some with the 'big idea', computer nerds, tree-huggers, site boots and high heels, they are all in the mix.  LinkedIn, Facebook, Meetup - are all ways for us to be 'friends' but without engagement we become a floating mass of silent little photographs who mean nothing to each other.

I am setting up a "GroupSpaces" site as a final attempt to build real connections.  This will act as a 'members only' directory.  It will include an events diary and a forum.  It also allows me to keep an accurate contact list and coordinate emails and reminders more easily.  I will be sending out invitations soon. 

Well done if you have read to the end of this blog.  It's taken me over 3 hours as I hesitate, ruminate and fret about why I am doing this.  I suppose I must still believe in it.








  

I've had a busy start to the working year with lots of lovely inquiries and new projects - seems it's not just gym memberships and healthy eating on folk's new year agenda.

My own personal resolutions focus on money - understanding it, not being scared of it (or the lack of it), working with it.  I heard myself admitting to a friend that I "am not very good with money" and acknowledging that this was NOT A GOOD THING for someone who owns her own business.
So...never mind food diaries, mine is a spending diary and I will look at my account balances and I will keep my accounts up to date.

My self-help-financial-guru is the lovely Alvin Hall...
 


Him off of the TV and radio - I think I remember him from the early 90s and now with some very readable books.

ANYWAY, I'm still on the first chapter but one of the first things that has hit me is the idea of 'knowing your price'.  This might be about your ultimate aim - a dream house/car/holiday, lottery win type figures or it might be about what you know you need to make ends meet.

I consider myself to be very lucky in all that I have.  I know there are people with more than me but I know there are also many with less.  I don't feel comfortable talking about money or asking for it or even admitting to wanting it.  These feelings have to do with the social constructs around money and it is a relief to admit my discomfort.

'Knowing my price' forced me to look again at my overheads and running costs for my business.  Then I had to be honest with myself about the money I spend on clothes, presents and trips to the hairdresser.  Then it forced me to have a conversation with my husband about how we spend the money we each bring in and what we would like to aim for as a family.  With that information I was then able to look at my fee strategy.  I was able to look at my available hours and what I would need to charge to meet my target and see how that corresponded to the work stages of a project.  It was a relief to feel comfortable about the figures knowing they represented my known needs and expenses.  I didn't need to worry about what other people were charging, that's up to them and if I don't get the work based on these figures then clearly I need to review.

It all seems blatantly obvious once you've done it and probably more money savvy / driven types are wondering what my problem is...but maybe if you've hesitated about asking for a raise or had sleepless nights over a fee bid or job quote, then you might know where I'm coming from.

So what seems relevant to a woman in construction in Cambridge as we slide towards the end of 2015?

On being a woman...
Well I've just listened to a radio programme called the Misogyny Bookclub on the Story of Eve and it's impact on our view of women which has left me feeling pretty flat.

I still ponder the discussion on Woman's Hour about Women in Architecture and why they never get to the bottom of an apparent lack of success yet find lots of women architects to talk to (my view? talk to the ones who don't 'make it' and reevaluate what you call success and/or 'an architect').

I'll be 44 in a couple of weeks and I'm taken aback by the speed of all those "signs of aging"...I wanted to age gracefully and for that read gradually...

On working in construction...
Inquiries have been pretty steady but progression is a bit stop and start and I'm starting to see how one needs many projects in the pot in the hope that a few will go the distance.

Builders are busy and getting interest and having any idea of costs is a challenge.

On Cambridge...
Can you keep up with the changes?  We had a public consultation on new road layouts and social housing near us (Yay! It's not all £1million plus houses getting built).

and then, well, I guess we're thinking about Christmas and then a New Year and some new resolutions - watch this space.

  

I enjoyed our lunch-time meet up last week sooo much.  It gave me exactly what I wanted / needed:

- stimulating conversation
- a laugh
- contact with the wider world
- reassurance
- food for thought (and a nice halloumi salad for my tummy)

 I remember talking to a woman who had tried to start a similar group a few years ago and she said they quite quickly ran out of things to talk about.  That just doesn't seem to happen with CWIC.  Perhaps it is because we come from multi-disciplines. Perhaps it's because we only meet once a month and there are different people there every time.

It also surprises me how readily we talk about 'women's issues'.  In my experience these are 'risky' topics in general company and with people you don't know.  A bit like talking about politics or religion.  We heard about an engineering firm and a contractor who both run programmes to improve awareness and support around gender issues (I wonder if there are architecture firms that do this).  We talked about unconscious actions on all sides - how women nod in conversation to show they are listening and encourage the speaker, how men nod to say they've got it, now move on.  We noticed how, although we all made a point of shaking hands with men at a meeting, we hadn't shaken hands with each other (bar one).  So then we did shake hands with each other and we realised it gave us a chance for eye contact and to give our name and to hear the other person's name and I, for one, resolved to make sure I do this more often.

 

It strikes me that women are aware that they communicate differently and struggle for ways into a conversation with a group of men.  Out of work and in a balanced gender group the conversation topics can be more varied.  But, just as I have found myself talking about hairdryers and 'not having enough time to exercise' with women, so men can bond over formula 1 and whichever current sports tournament is on. There's a really interesting summary on male/female conversation styles here.

England's Natasha Hunt (scrum half) in last year's Rugby World Cup

I remember consciously deciding whether to join the pre-meeting rugby banter  once.  These were my options:

1. try and join in:" no I didn't watch France, Ireland but I did see them play Italy and I thought their line-out's were scrappy and Italy should've won"
possible outcomes - shocked silence, competitive probing questions which reveal I'm really just repeating what my Dad said, being thought 'laddish', being brought into the conversation and settling down to the meeting

2. join in with self-depreciation, "oh I don't know anything about rugby, it's not my thing" maybe risk a joke about funny shaped balls
possible outcomes - shocked silence, condescending reassurance, being brought into the conversation and settling down to the meeting

3. silent paper shuffling, writing the date in my notebook and drawing a pointless margin
possible outcome -  nobody notices,  others find you aloof, someone starts a one to one conversation, everyone settles down to the meeting.

Sadly, despite being a quite rugby fan I don't know much about women's rugby and didn't feel like challenging the majority so on that occasion I went for option 3.






 

One of my projects is a small new house in central Cambridge.  The clients are keen environmentalists and working through the design is bringing me right up to date with the latest government policies.

A click through from the BREEAM website to the DCLG - Code for Sustainable Homes takes you to Policy Paper: "2010 to 2015 government policy:energy efficiency in buildings" and
Appendix 7: code for sustainable homes, which states: This policy was withdrawn on 27th March 2015.

More recently the government also scrapped the Zero Carbon Homes policy planned for 2016 and the corresponding idea for "allowable solutions" where funds are put into off -site carbon savings.  According to the Guardian UK Green Building Council, housebuilders, energy leaders and environmentalists are all critical of the move.

As I swing from link to link trying to get my head round latest theory and up to date approaches to energy conservation it strikes me just how much work has been done with the 2016 deadline in mind. I reason that it is not wasted as it has expanded our knowledge and understanding but I really feel for the authors, researchers and house builders working to be ahead of the game.  So much careful work, so many clear explanations and tested solutions, abandoned.

Yet I am sympathetic to the government wanting to make building housing easier.   The 'housing crisis' is real but it is hard for some of us to see.  It is misleading too because it implies that it has to do with people having somewhere to live - a roof over their head.  If we aren't seeing more people on the street then they must be living somewhere so it's not so bad -is it?  I suspect it is the doctors and teachers and police, separate to the social workers, who see the housing crisis even though they are having to deal with its fallout, not the issue of housing itself.

There is a mismatch - governments want more (affordable we hope) homes built and they want the private sector to do this.  At the same time they need to meet energy targets and buildings are a major contributor to Green House Gas emissions therefore they want buildings to be more energy efficient and they want the private sector to do this too.  It seems this has proved too costly and cumbersome for the building companies.  It isn't the companies' fault because ultimately they need to make profits to keep functioning.

This starts to look like a case study from Joel Bakan's book "The Corporation" published 2003. I bought this years ago when I first got excited about the idea of corporate social responsibility.  Bakan stamps all over that idea and describes the corporation (limited company) as a pathological entity, self serving by design and with no conscience social, environmental or otherwise.

State building of energy efficient social housing.  Is it impossible?  I don't know.  Time to start looping though some political links out there and getting my head round the big picture.

Studio Hobohm - Proposed New House, Cambridge

 

How confident am I?

"I have confidence in confidence alone.  Besides you can see I have confidence in me."

I was out for a drink with a good friend, SJ, last week and she told me she'd joined "Toastmasters".
I sipped my G&T, nodded pretending I knew what she was talking about and then said,
"No, I'm sorry, what?"

Toastmasters is evidently an internationally organised public speaking club. A quick search on their website finds 6 groups in a 25 mile radius of my back garden (north Cambridge).  The Cambridge Speakers Club meets every other Tuesday at 7.15pm for 7.30pm at the Royal Cambridge Hotel, Trumpington Street.  SJ said the idea is to complete a certain number of prepared speeches (was it 10?) in a year, to the group but there are also impromptu exercises like speaking for (oh dear, perhaps there were too many G&Ts) 2 minutes? 5 minutes? on a random question.  Her question was based on the news story about a lion and the question was "Why do you hunt?".  She managed 30 seconds and felt like a queen afterward.

Now my friend is not university educated, she has advanced her career through distance learning and grabbing opportunities even when she thought she was not qualified (although the people offering her the jobs clearly did).  She now finds herself at a weekly meeting of 20+ people, all of whom she imagines are brighter and more able than her.  She hates it.  "You don't have this problem Jo," she says, "I've seen you," (we used to work together) "you don't mind all those eyes on you."

Well, maybe I did learn how to ignore the voice of doubt in my head.  The one saying "They all think you don't know what you are talking about...you don't know what you are talking about...your face is going red and by the way you look fat."

Mind you, I need to listen to the one saying "Stop playing with your hair and your necklace".

However, I am very out of practice.  I anticipate a planning committee meeting for a project of mine soon and this will be my first as my own boss.  The thought makes me feel a bit sick.

So I look at my friend with absolute admiration because she has identified something that is making her working life difficult and she is doing something about it - something that terrifies her and also costs her a bit of time and money. CamAWiSE  for women in Science, Engineering and Technology are running a Confidence Workshop on 15th September -for members and non-members.
Workshops will be held in the Woodlegh Room at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, 8-10pm
Numbers will be strictly limited. Cost for two workshops is £20 for members, £30 for non-members. You may book for just one workshop (Members £12 / non-members £18) .  Tempted?

Did you know squirrels ate pears?

I have just noticed a very neatly nibbled core on the grass - I hesitate to use the word lawn - outside my studio window.  Since I'm pretty sure this can't have been either of the kids or the cat I can only assume it must have been the bouncing grey squirrel I spotted first thing this morning.

And with that we squelch into September.

It's been a 'good' summer from a family point of view.  I mentally blocked out 2 fortnights off work and tried to keep projects ticking over but next year I want to keep more definite work-time going.

This isn't so much to do with the work itself but to do with holding on to 'me'.

By the time we made it to North Devon for our week away I was drained.  I started planning ways to re-focus on myself, get intellectual stimulation, outside interests, new challenges and goals.  Then I remembered I get all that from working.  I remembered how much more tolerant I am of the kids when I've had a bit of time not thinking about them.  The slightly sick feeling in my stomach had a lot to do with knowing I'd been spending lots of money and not feeling in touch with making any.  My husband told me he actually liked it better when I didn't think of everything 4 days in advance and left a bit of room for him to get involved. Point taken.

So bring on September.  Resolutions for this autumnal restart include DOING THIS BLOG, getting on top of my accounts and having husband cook tea more often.

Re-start

This is a new post while I work out how to get a new look and a re-start for this blog.

DECEMBER MEET-UP

posh frocks and site boots, you know it makes sense - get the festive season off with a swing

and get together with like-minded women who know where you are coming from..

tell your friends !

x

Bar Baroosh, Market Passage, Cambridge, CB2 3PF

July Newsletter

summer greetings

I really hope you are enjoying the summer so far.   

Who would have thought we’d welcome a bit of cloud and rain but I’m certainly glad my little home office is not as hot and airless today as it has been recently. 

In between ice-creams, work and life-stuff I have been chewing over the best way to

keep Cambridge Women in Construction active and effective.   

The truth is it needs more input than my ramblings and last minute meet-up arrangements. So…

this is what is happening:

1: the cwic blog is now also a website

See the tabs above!  We have articles, contact information, a sign up form and a page for your news.  Email cwic.contact@gmail.com with any company news, awards, achievements or developments and they'll get world wide web exposure! Remember, boasting is good.

 

2: using Linkedin.com

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the blog or twitter you will have read about my forays into social media and views on the pros and cons.  I know it is not a world that everyone feels comfortable with but I very strongly recommend everyone gives it a go and Linkedin in is the most professionally acceptable online forum.  With your involvement we can have instant discussions on issues as they arise, share our contact details for projects, work advice and hear about events in time to get them into our diaries!

3: regular meet-ups – see calendar below

We will now have a regular meet-up every two months.  This will be on the first Tuesday from 5pm at the Cambridge Brew House, 1 King Street, Cambridge, CB1 1LH.  I shall be there with a bright yellow hard-hat (on the table, I’m not waiting there on my own with it on my head).  Check out their website, they do food and snacks, coffees and also have a seminar room so hopefully any talks or bigger events we do can be in the same place.

 

calendar

Evening Meet-Ups 2013:

From 5pm -        Tuesday, 10^th September

                           Tuesday, 5^th November

Evening Meet-Ups 2014:

From 5pm -        Tuesday, 7^th January

Combined or in addition to these we are planning:

Women’s Finance – a talk on business finance from a woman’s point of view by Kate Marsden (uk.linkedin.com/in/katemarsden/)

Using Social Media – Nadia Cenci who ran the ‘How to Network’ seminar last year

 

…and finally

Cambridge Women in Construction exists because plenty of women work in construction but the nature of the industry means we are spread thinly through the different disciplines.  While we would be happy to have the gender balance addressed our aim is to support and celebrate those already doing the work.  There are common issues that arise from being a minority but trying to change the numbers is not the only way to address them.  Young women starting out should not feel they are breaking new ground.

We are here to share, learn and help each other, we want to make business contacts and hopefully new friends.

and now listen to this...

There are theories, aren't there, about coincidences and whether they are real or whether it's because you had already had the thought, or reacted to one event that the next was significant enough for you to notice and make a link.
Following on from my thoughts on part time work, I heard a wonderful talk yesterday on women's equality on Radio 4.  It is brilliant.  It is 15 minutes long - I stayed in the car in the Tesco car park to hear it out.  Judith Shapiro, a successful economist acknowledges and celebrates the accomplishments of women in her lifetime but succinctly puts her finger on the next challenge and changing men and women's view of part time work is one of them.  I have an underlying concern that women's history is always repeating itself - that we go two steps forward and one step back and that the next generation feel they have to break the ground that their mother and grandmothers had actually already broken.  Shapiro's reflection is an excellent pointer to looking forward and moving forward.

click here to go to the BBC website: 

FOUR THOUGHT

Listen to it!

More on Judith Shapiro and credit for the photo here: http://www.intelligencesquared.com/speakers/judith-shapiro/

Flexible / Part Time Working

I've had a couple of reasons to think about this in the last few days and this is a quick blog, hopefully I will follow it up with more soon.

One friend, a teacher, has just had her first baby.  She's applied to go to a four day week but her superiors were making noises that they weren't too happy about the idea.  The school has always granted this for other mothers when they have requested it but my friend is an assistant principal.  Her concern is that they won't grant her the leave because she is too senior. 

Another friend works in the construction industry.  She (in my opinion) already works her socks off everyday.  This may be her personality, her diligence but it may also have to do with being a woman when most of her colleagues are men.  She is currently trying to work even harder to justify asking for part time work in the future when her family circumstances change.

I am no expert at all but I know that policies are in place so that everyone who cares for someone, be it a child, a sick relative, an elderly parent has the right to ask an employer for flexible working.  The employer doesn't have to grant it but they do have to give proper reasons and there are legal procedures for you, in your request and them to follow.  The best source of info is the government website.

Types of flexible working include:
Job sharing


Working from home

Part time

Compressed hours

Flexitime

Annualised hours

Staggered hours

Phased retirement

Employers can reject an application for one of the following reasons:

• extra costs which will damage the business
• the business won’t be able to meet customer demand
• the work can’t be reorganised among other staff
• people can’t be recruited to do the work
• flexible working will have an effect on quality and performance
• there’s a lack of work to do during the proposed working times
• the business is planning changes to the workforce

This must be done in writing and should inform the employer on how to appeal.

There's loads of information on the Working Families Website also.

And for those of us who don't care for anyone - care for a cup of tea? no not like that obviously, the government website also sets out that anyone can ask their employer if they will consider flexible working. Read about 10 powerful women and men working part time in this article from the Telegraph.

test

widgets, gadgets, twitter feeds and blog posts just the thing for a Sunday morning

— Joanne Hobohm (@cwic_tweet) June 9, 2013

Social Media-ing

As part of the new self-employed 21st century me I have been getting up half an hour earlier (week days only) and 'doing' social media online. I still feel like a monkey with mittens on when it comes to navigating the clicks and whizzes and setting things up like 'pages', 'links' or 'groups' always takes much longer than I anticipate but I'm going to persevere.  Why? Because I'm learning stuff, and not just how to operate in this strange cyber world.  I'm also forming an informed opinion on the different 'platforms' and what's good for what.  Here's a little summary - see if you agree.


Facebook
I keep my personal page private and try to restrict my friends to actual friends.  That's a moving definition though because Facebook can be useful for linking with new friends - people you meet on holiday or on a course.  I use the 'close friends' sub group for most of my posting and I hide notifications from some (such as my hip younger cousins) if they are dominating my news feed.  I'm careful about what I post and I can see the hazards of other people posting photographs of you and the inevitable linking of all one's online presences.  Most of my FB friends treat it as I do, not a place for deep and meaningful exchanges but good for a quick update, a shared joke or a quick hello, thumbs-up.

Facebook- business page
I've set up a Studio Hobohm Facebook page.  I have no idea if you can see this if you are not a member of Facebook.  Investigating this is on my 'to do list'.  At the moment it is Studio Hobohm's only web presence so it's an alternative to a website, has a relaxed feel and is easy to add to and update.  I still feel I need a website as my broader market is probably not Facebook friendly enough but it's been a good way to think about a company profile, images and links.

Twitter
I tweet under my Cambridge Women in Construction guise: @cwic_tweet.  Tweeting is a funny old business and the one I am most skeptical about.  It's difficult to see how anyone has time to read what you are saying or follow up on the links that are posted.  There is a steady stream of information but as I have been tweeting at the same time each day (first thing in the morning) - I imagine I am only seen by a few people before I slip down the ranks.  I believe you can pre-write tweets and send them out at set times but I haven't (had time) to work out how to do this.  Twitter seems to be a true marketing tool - raising awareness, letting people know you exist and giving them a flavour of who you are and what you do through the content of your tweets.  I haven't got the hang of the hash-tag and I haven't joined any 'conversations'.  At the moment I feel like everyone on Twitter is posting for attention and I'm not sure anyone is looking for the info.  It's a battle of the followers and the followed.   I've linked the feed to the studio hobohm page and I will try again to get that working on this blog as I think that may have more interest.

LinkedIn
This is a much more grown-up version of all the others but as a consequence seems a lot less active and not much fun.   It's the working world and has already been useful for job references and old uni contacts.  It's a kind of online CV and has groups for discussions and messaging which I think could be useful for CWiC - another 'to do list' item. That would make checking it more meaningful because I must admit I don't do much more than log on at the moment.