WISH North Wales & WISH North West First: Joint Masterclass at Chester Zoo

Monday 9^th June saw one of the most exciting events in the WISH 2025 calendar - the first joint event between the WISH North Wales and WISH North West boards in several years.  Being just over the border from each other, we’d been speaking for a little while about how we could collaborate and as we had a great speaker lined up and summertime was approaching, June presented the perfect opportunity. And the excitement didn’t stop there…!

The backdrop to the event was the fantastic Chester Zoo. Surrounded on the outside by beautiful grounds and amazing animals housed at the Zoo, we said ‘welcome’ and ‘croeso’ to almost 100 WISH members from across both regions, with familiar faces and some old friends joining us (as well as at least one male ally!). We loved seeing everyone integrating and networking in the true spirit of WISH and getting to know one another over a delicious lunch.

We got to know each other even better when our speaker, Molly Harvey, took to the floor. Molly is recognised as a leading authority on leadership and cultural transformation and in her career as a speaker, which spans over 18 years, she has spoken at the United Nations, universities and has worked with Fortune 500 companies. She has over 30 years’ experience in engaging people, companies and communities and we were so honoured that she joined us to lead us in a masterclass, “Make Changes not Excuses”.

Molly wasted no time in getting us up on our feet, circulating about the room and speaking to people we had not met before. It was a great way to break the ice and heighten the buzz in the room even more. If there was one comment that we kept hearing throughout the day, it was that the energy and atmosphere was something special.

Through Molly’s masterclass, we learned the importance of having a ‘not to do’ list as well as a ‘to do’ list and we all came away having made a commitment ‘not to do’ something , committing to this by saying it out loud to one of our new connections, whose job it will now be to hold us to account. Molly also taught us about the importance of being present in the moment, really listening to others and being aware of the energy we bring into a room, reminding us of that well known saying “people won’t remember what you said to them, but they will remember how you made them feel”. She shared some of her own personal experiences to bring this to life and we were all encouraged to share some of our own with each other.

Molly’s session was full of humour, relatability and warmth which engaged everyone in the room. We all left feeling uplifted and confident that we could implement some of Molly’s lessons in our busy day-to-day lives.  After the event, our members had the opportunity to network some more as they explored the Zoo and we loved seeing the photos on social media of everyone enjoying themselves.

We all agreed that this will not be the last joint event between the North Wales and North West boards and we look forward to doing another one soon.