WISH Winter 2024 Newsletter

WISH Winter 2024 Newsletter

A big festive welcome to everyone reading this Winter newsletter from WISH!

Who can possibly mind that the days are shorter and darker and that the weather is colder and wetter when twinkly lights pop up everywhere, the annual WISH survey goes live, and there are so many festive networking events being hosted across our WISH regions?

This time of year also provides a fantastic opportunity to reflect on the past year and to look forward to developments for 2025…

Reflecting on an incredibly positive year, here are some highlights:

• Events and Webinars: An amazing array of 37 in-person events have been hosted by our 10 fantastic Regional Boards, and our online offer of WISH webinars, free for all members, has gone from strength to strength. We held 11 online webinars last year and in addition we delivered 10 bite-size training courses in partnership with our amazing training providers Gemma Brown and Hayley Gillard. Visit the training page here.
• Career Mentoring Programme: In June we launched our first Career Mentoring Programme in collaboration with the fabulous team at Page Executive. Watch this space for details about how to express an interest in the 2025 programme…
• Collaborative Voice and Campaigns: Our voice has been heard through the housing sector press, national conferences, and sector bodies. Our 2-year Presidential Campaign, #HearHerVoice, has had such a positive impact—featuring in the housing press, being promoted by conference organisers, and most importantly, positively impacting women in the sector.
• WISH Podcast: We have had the absolute privilege over the past few months to chat with an amazing group of inspirational women for the first series of the ‘If I had one WISH…’ podcast. In January the full series will be made available, and we’ll share all of the details shortly…
• Expanding our Impact: We’ve collaborated with the Chartered Institute of Housing on powerful networking events aligned with CIH conferences, we’ve partnered with London Build and Ocean Media and we are absolutely thrilled to announce that WISH Ireland is live! A wonderful Board of passionate women has been appointed and in January 2025 WISH Ireland’s inaugural event is taking place!

Looking forward to 2025, in addition to providing our members with a fantastic array of powerful and inspiring events, training and networking opportunities we will also be welcoming members to WISH Ireland, holding a WISH Festival, welcoming a new WISH President and, of course, celebrating International Women’s Day (IWD). Our annual WISH survey (link) really helps us shape the services we provide for members and our campaigning around IWD. Please share the survey far and wide—we would love to hear as many voices as possible.

And finally, we couldn’t possibly achieve all that we do without our amazing Regional Board members—this group of volunteers makes WISH what it is. A big THANK YOU to you all.

Have a wonderful festive break everyone, and Season’s Greetings to one and all!

READ THE FULL NEWSLETTER HERE