Women In Rural Enterprise

When Lucy said that we were going to a conference my first thought was to pre-load with caffeine in preparation for endless PowerPoint presentations, but Women in Rural Enterprise doesn’t do things that way! Even upon entry we could sense the buzz in the room.

Meet the women of WiRE

After a swift cuppa and a fantastic introduction from the WiRE network leaders we settled in to listen to social media expert Eileen Brown from Amastra.

To kick off Eileen asked us how much we knew about social media, which revealed a really mixed bag, from those who’d never used Facebook or Twitter to those who were updating their presence daily.

Having sworn us to silence Eileen told us the secrets that she’d never put on her own online profile and revealed the frightening truth that anything posted online will leave a trace, regardless of whether you hit the delete button or not!

We came away from Eileen’s talk fired up and with a lot less ink in our pens from taking notes.

Next up was the energetic Isla Wilson from RubyStar Associates, who will be remembered not just for making sales fun, but for raising the biggest laugh of the day with her balloon metaphor.

Reassured that the dove shaped balloons were fully biodegradable we gathered in a big group to release them into the air as a representation of our sales anxieties. On the count of three the doves found their way straight into the nearest tree, accompanied by raucous laughter.

Rounding up the day was Miranda Ballard from Muddy Boots Food who could have made a talk about mud itself seem interesting with her astute business mind and quick wit that would put a stand-up comedian to shame.

Quoting innocent Miranda reassured everyone that when it comes to business “if you’re 70% sure about an idea then go for it. Because if you wait till you’re 100% confident in business… you’ll never make a decision, you’ll never get anywhere.”

Name dropping

At lunch we got chatting to Louise Van Adrichem from Cicla and Amanda Dawson from The Tretham Estate. “What’s Cicla?” Lucy and I exclaimed before checking out the gorgeous female only cycling gear on Louise’s flyer and it wasn’t long before we were all wowed by Amanda’s extensive knowledge of all things marketing, which she puts to good use at Trentham Estate.

We also caught up with Sarah Hughes from Eat My Flowers, who told us about her recent press coverage in the Telegraph’s Weekend section and made us incredibly hungry showing us cupcakes topped with her beautiful edible flowers.

Last, but not least we compared notes with Marnie Dobson from Chestnut Meats who specialises in goat’s meat and we were delighted to hear that her friend had recently got engaged to a man she met on Muddy Matches. To find out more about the benefits of eating goat’s meat check out our blog post ‘Getting Your Goat’.

We had a fantastic day, met lots of interesting women and it all goes to prove how important rural businesses are to the economy. To find out more about WiRE or to get involved with one of their networking events please visit the WiRE’s website.