We had some great feedback from our sessions last year

“Really worthwhile” ”The facilitator was lovely!”                     

“Thanks I really appreciate your effort to organise this”    “Excellent value for [...]]]>  Join Progressive Women for Leadership training workshops. We’ve got three new and unique sessions available in partnership with professional leadership coaches ANKLe 

We had some great feedback from our sessions last year

“Really worthwhile” ”The facilitator was lovely!”                     

“Thanks I really appreciate your effort to organise this”    “Excellent value for money” 

Find out more about our new sessions for February 2012 and how to reserve your place below. All tickets must be purchased in advance

Understanding Change and Transition

Weds 8 Feb, 6.30pm-8.30pm, Friends Meeting House, 173 Euston Road, NW1 2BJ

Life these days is always changing – whether it’s a change in your career circumstances or a new personal relationship. It helps to understand the inner psychological transition that we humans need to make if we are to really realise the potential of the new change. Judy Oliver, founder of ANKLe, promises that her session will offer solutions – at home or at work it works!

Who is Judy Oliver? Judy Oliver (BA Hons Barrister, FIPD, FRSA) specialises in leadership development, strategic thinking, and transition planning. Judy is founder of A New Kind of Leadership (ANKLe). In addition to providing bespoke development programmes for Boards and Executive Teams, she has successfully designed and delivered key strategic development programmes for clinical leaders in the NHS, directors and senior managers which have contributed to more effective collaboration. Before setting up her own company JudyOliverandCo,Judy worked for 17 years with BP and 9 years in local government. Read feedback from Judy’s clients here

Reserve your place by purchasing your ticket here

Communication skills: Embracing the hidden potential of your voice

Weds 22nd Feb, Friends Meeting House, 173 Euston Road, NW1 2BJ

Communication is the key to successful leadership and this workshop will focus on new tools and techniques to help you use your voice to the best of your ability.

Julia Williams will work with individual issues that hold us back, which everyone can find useful. This can be dealing with nerves, speaking too quickly, focusing a creative chaotic mind, not daring to speak, fearing to be too emotional – whatever you think is holding you back.

Julia has extensive experience of helping people working across all sectors to find their voice and maximise their impact. Many of us secretly don’t like something about our voice or speaking manner, especially if it occasionally lets us down. Julia has worked with a number of high profile UK and international companies such as Accenture, JP Morgan, Barclays, HSBC, Shell and BT, as well as government bodies such as the Ministry of Defence, TFL and HM Treasury. You can find out more about Julia’s success stories on her company website www.personalimpact.com

Reserve your place by purchasing your ticket for this event here

Designing Effective Events and Meetings

Weds 29th Feb, 6.30pm – 8.30pm, Friends Meeting House, 173 Euston Road, NW1 2BJ

Key to successful leadership is effective time management. Do you want to optimise the effectiveness of your events and maximise the results from your meetings? If you’re fed up of spending too much time at work in ’talking shops’ this session will help you learn how to make the most from meetings and events.

Professional Leadership coach Judy Oliver will lead this workshop. She will apply the Nancy Kline method of developing a Thinking Environment where people can give their best, for constructive results.

You can reserve your place for this workshop by purchasing your ticket here

Join our mailing list for news on future Progressive Women events email progress@progressivewomen.org.uk follow us on twitter @sylviapankhurst

Following on from our mentoring events earlier this year we will be hosting a series of top quality training sessions with experienced professional trainers to help women develop their  leadership skills. This is a unique opportunity [...]]]> Progressive Women are delighted to announce a series of Leadership Development workshops in partnership with ANKLe (a New Kind of Leadership).

Following on from our mentoring events earlier this year we will be hosting a series of top quality training sessions with experienced professional trainers to help women develop their  leadership skills. This is a unique opportunity to experience top quality training (normally +£300!)  at a non-profit price.

The aim of the workshop series is for top quality, inspiring, women trainers to share practical tools and techniques to help you become a successful leader. This series is a unique opportunity to experience expert professional training in a small group tailored specifically for women at a non profit price.  

9 November Women’s Leadership – Why it’s different and how to sustain it with Isobel Gowan.

6.30pm-8.30pm, YWCA Central Club, 44 Portland Place, London, W1B 1NE. Tickets £20. Buy your ticket here.

Isobel will facilitate a workshop on women’s leadership where she will focus on what you want to achieve from leadership and how you can get there. Isobel is a highly skilled leadership coach with extensive experience in the NHS latterly as Chief Executive of a large acute and community  Trust. Isobel now runs her own company and works with Boards to develop their effectiveness.

Find out more and buy your ticket for this workshop here

30 November What makes me tick? -deepening awareness for planning your career with Lindsay Wittenberg.

6.30pm-8.30pm.  YWCA Central Club, 44 Portland Place, London, W1B 1NE. Tickets £20. Purchase your ticket here.

Lindsay’s workshop will focus on the question ’how can I be productive at work and still be myself?’. The workshop will help you identify your strengths and values  and how you can use these to succeed in planning your career. 

Lindsay Wittenberg (BA Hons, MIBC, CMC, FRSA, MBTI Certified Practitioner) has been an executive coach and career coach since 2003. She is founder and Managing Director of her own leadership development and coaching company.

Find out more about this workshop and book your place here.

7 December The Key to Success: Getting to know yourself and others with Suzy Phillips.

6.30pm-8.30pm.  YWCA Central Club, 44 Portland Place, London, W1B 1NE. Tickets £20. Purchase your ticket here

The workshop will focus on using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator to help you to understand how you prefer to operate. Greater self-awareness can help you to be more effective in your professional and personal life and help you interact most effectively with others. The workshop aims to give you practical tools to help you be successul and influential in all aspects of your life.  

More details are available and to book your place click here 

Contact Progressive Women to be added to our mailing list caroline@progressivewomen.org.uk. Follow us on twitter @sylviapankhurst #WomenLead

Progressive Women are looking for 8 women to [...]]]> I’m afraid this workshop session is now full. If you want to register for the waiting list then do email Caroline at the address below or if you want to be updated about the mentoring scheme once it is up and running then please do get in touch.

Progressive Women are looking for 8 women to join us on Wednesday 2nd February for a free workshop with ANKLE (A New Kind of Leadership) Network. To be held at: RSA, John Adam St, London, WC2N 6EZ

The aim of the meeting is to

• Share what ANKLE have learned about the importance of creating a thinking environment which enables us to think well, based on the amazing work of Nancy Kline (www.timetothink.com)
• Learn some very practical techniques which can be directly applied at work and at home to help relationships and work processes be more effective;
• Look at a proposal for a co-mentoring system between our two networks which would enable us to set up a range of cross-generation mentoring partnerships in 2011, using Thinking Environment methods;
• Agree next steps.

If you want to participate in this workshop on 2nd February please email caroline@progressivewomen.org.uk by Wednesday 26th January.

“Virtually all feminist debate on body image and beauty imagery owes its existence to Susie Orbach” – Naomi Wolf.

Progressive Women’s year was officially kick started last night at our New Year’s Feminist Resolution Party. Professor Susie Orbach was our guest speaker and she [...]]]> Caroline Watson, Co-founder of Progressive Women, writes about the first Progressive Women event of 2011

“Virtually all feminist debate on body image and beauty imagery owes its existence to Susie Orbach” – Naomi Wolf.

Progressive Women’s year was officially kick started last night at our New Year’s Feminist Resolution Party. Professor Susie Orbach was our guest speaker and she certainly got us thinking, discussing, motivated and committed to some great new year’s resolutions (read on to find out what some of these are).

Although Susie started by saying she didn’t necessarily  believe in resolutions she said that we should all resolve to be comfortable with ourselves and support other women to be comfortable with their appearance and their bodies.  Constantly worrying about eating and dieting, and criticising ourselves for not being thin enough, or being the right size or shape is violence against ourselves. There is a culture of  a fear of food and much of this is pedalled by the diet industry which makes a profit from people failing. Diets are designed for people to fail to lose weight so they will then try the next diet and keep on abusing their bodies in this way while making the diet industry rich. Susie proclaimed the diet industry should be prosecuted!

Susie told us about her campaign Endangered Species.

“The woman who can walk, dress, talk, eat, swim, work, without losing energy and time over the anxiety of looking good enough, is an Endangered Species.” The Endangered Species campaign is a global initiative and the first summit will be held on 4th March at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

Susie spoke of the need for a sustainable mind and sustainable body. We had a thought provoking discussion and then we asked everyone to commit to a resolution some of which are here – many inspired by Susie’s messsage.

“Get involved with more activism”

“Don’t let the bastards get you down”

“Don’t give up!”

“Do more stuff like this”

“Be kinder to myself”

“Join Twitter and use as a force for good to promote feminist issues”

“Be more proactive when ranting about the treatment of women in the media etc (ie write letter to the editor etc rather than ranting at friends”

“Be mindful”

“Boycott trashy gossip magazines or anything that has the word diet on the cover”

“To challenge pseudo-feminist to be actual feminists.”

We’ve had a look in Parliament and can’t find too many there. Had a scan of the Cabinet and could only see one or two. Checked in at the Labour leadership race and could only see one. We’ve [...]]]> Where are the women? Discussion on women and leadership
Wednesday 21st July, 6:30pm -8:00pm, Venue TBC

We’ve had a look in Parliament and can’t find too many there. Had a scan of the Cabinet and could only see one or two. Checked in at the Labour leadership race and could only see one. We’ve been looking everywhere and just can’t seem to find the women.

If like us you’re concerned about the lack of women in Parliament and the drought of women in political leadership positions then join us for a lively and interesting discussion about what can be done about it.

We know lots of you have ideas about why it is that women are still only 1/5th of MPs and what can be done to change this. We also think that if we want to see more talented women elected at the next general election, and more women standing for the leadership of their political party, that we need to pool these ideas.

We hope you’ll join us for a roundtable discussion with other Progressive Women and representatives from the world of policy and politics. Do you know the secret to getting more women into Parliament – come along and tell us. Do you want to know the answer to increasing female leadership – come along and find out.

At the next election we want to see the number of women MPs increase significantly, the next time a political party has a vacancy for leader we want to see women at the forefront, we hope you’ll come along and be part of the process to get there.

Please RSVP to Caroline on caroline@progressivewomen.org.uk and watch this space for details of venue and contributors.

Join us and guest speaker Jo Swinson MP for a discussion on [...]]]> The portrayal of women in the media – it’s a controversial topic. Are women fairly portrayed in the media? Does air brushing promote eating disorders and insecurity or is it a harmless fashion tool? Are female politicians unfairly criticised? What do you think?

Join us and guest speaker Jo Swinson MP for a discussion on how women are treated by the media and details on Jo’s Real Women campaign.

Tuesday 10th November at 6.30pm in room W1, just off Westminster Hall at the House of Commons. Westminster Hall is the oldest part of the Palace of Westminster and the first part that visitors enter after passing through security. Please use the main public entrance just off Parliament Square, entrance 6 on this map and allow up to 15 minutes to pass through security.

Please RSVP to progress @ progressivewomen . org . uk

We look forward to seeing you there.

Our speaker’s gave a great overview of women’s position in elected politics in Britain today, what it’s like to run for office and what you can achieve once you get there.

Did you know that the UK ranks 60th in the world for the number of women in our Parliament? [...]]]> A really inspiring discussion last night.

Our speaker’s gave a great overview of women’s position in elected politics in Britain today, what it’s like to run for office and what you can achieve once you get there.

Did you know that the UK ranks 60th in the world for the number of women in our Parliament? Well behind countries such as Rwanda, Sweden and even the Seychelles!

Top tips for running for office included – don’t worry if you don’t know everything about everything to start with, no one else does either even if they give off the impression that they do. Don’t worry if you think you don’t have enough experience – you’ll receive training in key skills such as talking to the media and public speaking. And don’t underestimate the amount of time it takes if you’re serious about winning, but if you do win it’s absolutely worth it!

For me, the key message was – don’t wait to be asked to run for office. If you’re passionate about something and want to make a difference put yourself forward – you can do it!

Mary

Our speakers are: London Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon; Anne Fairweather – Labour Candidate in the recent European elections; Beatrice Barleon of the Electoral Reform Society and Women and the Vote.

Please join us for a lively and inspiring discussion. RSVP to brooke [at] [...]]]> Don’t forget, next Progressive Women event is tonight: 6:30pm for 6:45 at the Two Chairman in Westminster.

Our speakers are:
London Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon;
Anne Fairweather – Labour Candidate in the recent European elections;
Beatrice Barleon of the Electoral Reform Society and Women and the Vote.

Please join us for a lively and inspiring discussion.
RSVP to brooke [at] progressivewomen [dot] org [dot] uk

We look forward to seeing you there!

Mary

Women in Politics: from campaigning to winning Our panel guests will be: London Assembly Member Caroline Pigeon, Anne Fairweather – Labour Candidate for the European Parliament Beatrice Barleon of the Electoral Reform Society and Women and the Vote 16th June 2009,Upstairs at The Two Chairman, Westminster, 6.30 for 6.45pm

Please [...]]]> As promised last week here are the details about our next meeting:

Women in Politics: from campaigning to winning
Our panel guests will be:
London Assembly Member Caroline Pigeon,
Anne Fairweather – Labour Candidate for the European Parliament
Beatrice Barleon of the Electoral Reform Society and Women and the Vote
16th June 2009,Upstairs at The Two Chairman, Westminster, 6.30 for 6.45pm

Please join us for a lively and inspiring discussion.
RSVP to brooke [at] progressivewomen [dot] org [dot] uk.
And spread the word to other progressive women you know.

Mary