Today, I wanted to share with you all about our first Sarah Hurley LIVE! event last week. This was a BIG thing for me, previously I’ve organised lots of events for CHA-UK but this was the first one just for me and completely by myself (I have Craig to help me with CHA-UK things!) I’m SO lucky that my team were on the ball and helped so much (BIG thanks Team Hurley!)
With goody bags packed, programs printed, food collected, balloons blown up and cars loaded, I don’t think any of us slept the night before. This was a massive task for Team Hurley and we knew we had just 2 hours to set up on the morning of the event. Craig did kindly come to help and the seven of us plugged away, greeting our first guests a little early at 9am. B’s mum had come to help and she got the kettle on and started people off chatting!
We started with a panel discussion, myself, Kirstie from my team, Craig from CHA-UK and one of our lovely sponsors, Natalie O’Shea from Stampin’ Up spoke about our careers in a creative industry, the different things we had tried, where to get help and opportunities available. At the end we took questions from the audience. We then moved on to an announcement about our Lean In partnership and our SPARK! programme (everyone that attended got a free place worth around £650!!) We then welcomed to the stage another of our sponsors, Jenny from PA Angels and the Business Womens Network. Jenny spoke about getting organised and gave us all a super handy to do list pad before telling us about the Business Womens Network here in Essex.
I then moved on to tell my story, this was pretty nerve wracking for me as I’d only ever done this once before in the USA earlier this year. Everyone was so lovely and made me feel very comfortable though which was nice. After that, my last talk of the day was the 25 Mad, bad & Crazy Hilarious things that have happened to me in business… This one provoked a LOT of discussion and it was fun (in some cases!) to relive those moments and make everyone realise they aren’t alone when crazy stuff like this happens! (Just for anyone that may be worried they featured in this talk, this was a bit of fun and sharing and not about ‘calling out’ anyones bad behaviour, especially those long in the past. No names were mentioned, and won’t be, neither were they confirmed in the instances where people guessed)
After a chatty lunch and plenty of tea and coffee, expertly made by B and his mum, and networking, it was time for demos! Shabneez and Karen done a marvellous job. Shabneez created beautiful Ferrero Rocher Poinsettias while Karen worked her wonders creating gift tags with my Doodle Doll stamps. There was time for everyone to do some shopping too and chat with my lovely team who looked after everyone trying to find their perfect crafty purchase or Christmas gift. During this time I was able to catch up with my mentoring session winners and it was fantastic to hear their goals, I gave lots of advice and promised a catch up in a couple of weeks – SO excited to see how these ladies develop their plans over the next 12 months!!
Towards the end of the day as the demos wound down, we held a couple of raffles to win some of our Book Club book picks and some fabulous Stampin’ Up goodies from Natalie and I told our audience about an opportunity we created just for them which was So well received, I can’t wait to hear from some of you about that!! Then, we all indulged in my inexpertly decorated (but still delicious!! and GOLD with STARS!) cake and some prosecco.
I was so thrilled to chat to everyone over the course of the day and it was great to catch up with some crafty friends and make some new ones! As everyone left I made sure to give them all a massive hug to thank them for coming, it was SUCH a fantastic day and as we packed away and took everything back we were still buzzing. We held a little after party in my local pub afterwards and some of my friends bought me chocolates and flowers. It was an AMAZING day and I’m still enjoying reading everyones blog posts and seeing the pics pop up on social media (please do use the hashtag #sarahhurleylive or tag me in if you share some!) and leave your blog links below, I can’t wait to see!
Loti has also posted about her visit here on her blog, I hope you’ll pop over to have a look!
A MASSIVE thank you to everyone that attended and enjoyed the day with us, our lovely sponsors, CHA-UK, Natalie O’Shea at Stampin’ Up, PA Angels, The Business Womens Network and BeeBees Boutique and of course, to my fantastic team!
Thank you for dropping by today!
Sarah x
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