The work is paying off

This blog has had quite a few posts in the past about how difficult things have been. And you, lovely people, have read them. So it’s only fair that I share the joy now there is some.

At the moment, I am in a brilliant mood. The last two weeks have been great. I had a much needed holiday, and came back refreshed and burning to work, and it’s all going well. The 25 women are all now waiting for their English assessments, which should be complete by the end of next week, and then the English training will begin, and we’ll understand how long it will take to get them all comfortable with the language. There’s a meeting scheduled for next Wednesday with me, the English trainers, and the sewing trainers, and we should, by the end of that, understand when at what level the women’s English needs to be for the sewing training to begin. Once we understand that, we can book the sewing training, and then understand when it will end, and therefore, how long it will be until we can start actually selling. This will mean we’ll know exactly when we can take on the full premises, and will mean I can properly talk to distributors about when we can ship to them.

The sewing trainers, a wonderfully brilliant woman and her excellent daughter, are also going to start work on some designs so we can pick the ones we like and get some samples made up so, again, I can have proper conversations with distributors. A few want to see samples, so I want to get them for them. We’re talking about going to see a supplier to actually choose the fabrics – exciting! For an underwear lover like me, a warehouse full of laces and pretty things will be a dream come true.

There’s a possibility of more funding on the horizon too, to cover training, which I am busy on today and will finish the first draft paperwork this afternoon. This is through a Sector Skills Council Women and Work pathway, which sounds great – and I’m arranging a meeting with me, them, and Rob Bentley from Wessex Partnerships, who has been brilliantly, generously supportive at no cost so far. There’s still not a great deal (that’s a slight overstatement) of funding to pay me, but I am somehow managing to get by, just! (I hate to beg, but if you want to donate and keep me in work, you can do so here http://whomadeyourpants.co.uk/support.html I do love this job and I’d hate to have to stop doing it and get another job just to pay the silly old bills). I’m looking into getting a volunteer in to help with fundraising – chairty work is a hard sector to get into, so if anyone wants any voluntary work to show as experience, I hoep we can help each other.

The immensely talented and generous Helen and Allegra are keeping the books ticking over, and we now (almost) have proper financial controls and reporting in place. I’ve a meeting with an accountant who knows Industrial and Provident Societies quite well next week. He’ll be able to tell me how much he’d charge us for getting our Annual returns sorted, which means I can add that into the funding bids – I’m struggling to put them together as I’m missing a whole lot of raw data at the moment. And I’ve a meeting with Coffin Mew coming up who will be our legal support, should we need them.

The music activity is going well – the fab ScarletBLONDE are playing on the 23rd May at the Half Moon, Putney (come along! should be a fun night) in support of pants, and the album looks great – cover artwork done, and a frankly stunning selection of contributors. Nigel, John – thank you.

We’re on twitter now and facebook too https://twitter.com/beckypants

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/WhoMadeYourPants/8353454178?ref=ts so if you want more news, that’s where you’ll find it.

We’ve been donated a huge amount of filing stuff, and a sofa, and no technology has broken (fingers crossed) in a while. Add in the facts that the sun is shining, my bike ride to work gets longer and prettier every day, we’ve a photo shoot tomorrow with Southern Co-ops who have awarded us money for machines, and the generosity of friends who are supporting me through my poverty, life couldn’t be much better.

*contents*

Filed under: Uncategorized, Milestones

This is the part of my job that I love.

Let’s for a minute forget that printers and computers and internet connections seem destined to frustrate me forever, and look at what happened this morning.

I’m just back in the office after a typically boisterous and joyful meeting. But this meeting was a special one, an atypical one. Held at Southampton Voluntary Services, it was the ‘only women who come to this meeting will get jobs and you have to bring all your immigration and benefits information stuff and you have to be on time as we have loads to do meeting’.

15 women brought everything. Five others brought nearly everything. Only one woman was unable to come, which was a real shame as she’s lovely, and has two brilliant daughters, and really wants to work, but I hope to be able to work out a way of getting the information from her.

And the best part? The meeting started at 10 – and nearly everyone was there. Some were there before me!

It was deliciously chaotic – 24 adults, an uncountable number of children (they were under tables, running round, playing, so difficult to keep track of) a queue of pushchairs, clattering teaspoons as heaps of sugar were dumped into tea. The lovely adviser from the Neighbourhood Advice Centre and I took to waving our arms about if we needed to be heard above the laughter and chatter, and thrillingly, amazingly, it’s sorted. Copies of all the immigration documentation we need have been taken, and those that didn’t bring any should be able to come and see me on Monday. It looks like there should be little danger of anyone’s benefits being hit – we’re going to start off with just three hours a week per woman, which will give only a tiny income – but enough to call their own, and to give them new experiences through earning it.

I’m taken aback by how relieved I am. Months of work – and I was in the room with the women that will be making YOUR pants! And mine! And theirs!

It was lovely to be able to say at the end that the English language assessments will be starting during the week of the 20th April, and have a real firm date set. The women were glad to hear that too – we’ve been talking for almost a year and I’m sure it feels like it’s been a long time coming. The issue of childcare popped up again and will continue to I’m sure – it is a nightmare trying to work out how women can work when childcare costs so much, and there are so few places anyway. The hope is that some sort of informal arrangement can be worked out for the women that have little ones, that they can share between them. This caused a bit of concern at first but it sounds like three hours should be mangeable. I wish I could do more to help, but I can’t.

And now there’s a pre holiday rush to get through. I’ve a week off from Tuesday 7th to the 14th inclusive, and so have a day and a half in the office before then. In which time I need to complete risk assessments and a contract to go to the organisation funding the training, get the remaining immigration papers sorted, let the English trainer know who will be attending (they, thankfully, will take over all the liaison with the women over that now) finalise my own job description and the business plan, and somehow find a working printer. For a brief few hours yesterday I had a laserjet which was lovely until the curse of Becky hit it and it stopped working with an error no-one had seen before.

But that’s a detail. Today has been brilliant. One of those real landmark days. Here’s to many more. Hooray!

Filed under: Uncategorized, Benefits, Milestones, Paperwork, SVS, Women