“I love seeing our members grow in confidence and achieve new milestones.”
Caroline Edwards, Events Director
It took attending just one Really Helpful Club event for Caroline Edwards to become inspired by the buzz and excitement of the thriving community. After meeting founder Sarah Austin and recognising the potential the Really Helpful Club’s Directory could be in helping others achieve their dreams, Caroline was invited to expand their ever-growing events programme – and she hasn’t stopped since.
Caroline is Really Helpful Club’s Events Director and organises a burgeoning programme of events that cover a wide and varied list of informative, relevant topics. We managed to secure some time with Caroline to find out more about Really Helpful Club’s events programme, the Back to Business conference, plans for future events and what really drives Caroline in her role.
Caroline, thank you for your time. It’s great to see Really Helpful Club’s events programme going from strength to strength. How has it changed under your stewardship over the years?
“When we started, our events were focused on home and lifestyle, and they were small. We quickly realised that many of our members were planning on returning to work or setting up a business, or had a business already that they needed help with. Juggling families and careers can be tough so, as well as establishing a series of training events, we also launched our annual Back to Business conference.
We grew our events programme and also started to focus more on business support, building people’s confidence in the business world, as well as how to create a work-life balance that works for them. However, of course, the pandemic was a curveball for everyone. 2020 was a major game-changer for us. Moving our events online and putting to one side in-person events was a big step but our events actually thrived.
Between April 2020 and April 2021, more than 1,000 people attended our online events, and loved them! In extraordinarily difficult times, our events provided a lifeline for many and gave them the opportunity to not only learn and reskill, but also gave them valuable tips and advice on how to cope with the multitude of pressures the pandemic brought.
Over the past 5 years, we have grown our corporate talks programme and we’re proud to say it’s gone from strength to strength, too. Talks with Schroders, Vodafone and St. James’s Place, focusing on women’s health and in particular menopause and hormonal health for many have been a lifesaver. For many of our corporate partners, we have been able to expand our talks to cover a much wider range of subjects – parenting, nutrition, relationships, divorce and emotional intelligence at work. This growth demonstrates how much employers are now realising how important it is to support their employees across all aspects of their lives.
We are particularly proud of our Schools Programme. Currently we are focusing on financial literacy to ensure teenagers leaving school know about budgeting, saving and how to financially plan for the future. Our talks, workshops and conferences in schools help to plug this gap in a child’s education; another game changer.”
In what way do you think your background in law, as well as your charity work, has helped you to develop Really Helpful Club’s events programme?
“Well, as a lawyer, attention to detail is a key skill and this has helped me ensure that the events we organise cover every aspect they need to, and are well run, particularly with our in-person events where you need to plan for every eventuality. Being a magistrate also gives me the inside track on the important issues people in our communities are facing today.
At Really Helpful Club, we always work hard to stay current and address these issues, as well as those that our members may be struggling with. With my charity work, I have had the great opportunity to meet fascinating people, many of whom we have invited to speak at our events. Not only does this give our audiences valuable insights from people who are actually ‘in the thick of it’, and can speak from experience, but also raises the profile and visibility of the charities they work for and support.
We have organised two major charity balls for the NSPCC which certainly tested our organisation’s skills, but we passed the test and the events were hugely successful. It was really interesting to have television crews at one of the balls; that definitely added a different dimension!”
What have you got planned for expanding Really Helpful Club’s event programme, such as topics or areas you would like to delve into more deeply?
“We would like to grow our in-person events again; there really is nothing better than feeling the buzz from a room full of people who are keen to connect and learn from each other. We are very much aware that many of our members live outside London, as well as in other countries. So, we have to balance this and many of our future in-person events will be of a hybrid format.
We also want to expand our Schools Programme over this coming year. We currently have more than 30 talks on offer, from hormone health, eating disorders and managing the party scene to learning how to network, CV writing and interview skills, and promoting your personal brand. We’ve even got talks on learning how to code and Artificial Intelligence. Our aim is to help schools become aware of how important it is for school leavers to have these soft skills as well as academic grades.
With our community talks, we want to continue to push the boundaries. At Really Helpful Club, we’ve never been shy about addressing those ‘hard to talk about’ topics. For example, we first started talking about the menopause way back in 2017 when there was little information available for women, and there certainly weren’t any events where women could speak openly about their experiences. In the coming months, we will be talking about neurodiversity, eating disorders, fertility and divorce, as well as many other previously considered ‘taboo’ subjects.
Lastly, we are also planning more business support workshops that will help a wide variety of people in supporting them to get back to work, further their careers, upskill and learn new talents, and those who want to start a new business.”
Which nicely brings us to Really Helpful Club’s Back to Business annual conference… What is this year’s theme, sponsors and speakers? Are there any plans to expand the conference’s format?
“We love Back to Business; it is our flagship event which started back in 2015. Since our first conference, we are proud to say that we have helped over 2,000 people get back to work or start their own business.
We’re actually skipping a year so our next Back to Business conference will be in January 2023. Our themes will be sustainability, financial wellbeing, business development, remote working and technology. The one-day event is going to be packed with great speakers, inspiring workshops and plenty of valuable advice for anyone who is starting on their journey back into the workplace, starting their own business, expanding an existing business or stepping up the career ladder.
We are so looking forward to working with our Business Directory member as we create a forward-thinking event. There really will be something for everyone at the conference; it’s a great opportunity to meet like-minded people who are in similar situations, supporting and learning from each other.”
So, where do you see Really Helpful Club’s events programme in 5 years’ time?
“We have big plans for the future. We would like to be running in-person events across the UK, especially in our schools, colleges and universities. However, we also want to expand our online events offerings, incorporating many more speakers and welcoming attendees worldwide.
As well as expanding our events, schools and community programmes, we are also working on creating interesting collaborations with other organisations and networks, such as Vodafone’s V-Hub, a fantastic resource for businesses. We are hoping that this will create much more variety and diverse content for our thriving members’ community.”
Our community, our greatest asset, at Really Helpful Club is about accepting and embracing people from every facet of life, bringing people together in ways where ideas and experiences are shared, offering unique opportunities for people to grow, and empowering each other to achieve what they might have thought impossible. To find out more about Really Helpful Club’s great array of inspiring, informative and engaging events, visit our website.
