WISH South West Winter News 2024

WISH South West News 2024

Reflections on 2024 and the Outlook for 2025 

We're delighted to welcome our two new board members,

Vikki Kirkwood

Vikki joined our board in the Summer, and brings 22 years' experience in construction and property maintenance, in recent years tendering contracts for social housing repairs, maintenance, and retrofit installations.

Vikki is extremely passionate about fairness and inclusion. Drawing on her own personal experiences she intends to use her Board Member role with WISH as a vehicle to raise awareness of the barriers women still face today, highlighting how women can better support each other, particularly in male dominated industries.

Being a mother to twins, one of whom has a diagnosis of autism, flexible working allows her to successfully balance work and life. At home Vikki likes to cook, read with her children, and on occasion, scuba dive; the serenity providing a rare break from parenthood and bidding. 

Vikki is excited to work alongside her fellow Board Members to uniquely shape the WISH South West offering to best meet the needs of its growing regional members. 

Hazel O'Halloran 

Hazel joined the board in the Autumn, and with over 24 years’ experience of embedding social purpose relating to Housing, Homelessness, Safeguarding, Domestic Abuse, and Community Investment, she is immensely passionate about inclusivity by actively leading on equity and diversity.

She is a Mentor for the Housing Diversity Network supporting and guiding mentees on their journey to unlock potential and inspiring confidence, providing opportunities to develop both professionally and personally.

Outside of her professional life, Hazel enjoys music festivals and gigs, and attends Pilates and Yoga classes to focus her body and mind.

Hazel is privileged to be able to bring together both professional and personal lived experience to the Board, and is keen to develop and promote the role of Connectors for our members and the wider Sector. 

Board Member recruitment and creation of hubs

With our South West region spanning from Buckinghamshire and Surrey down to Cornwall, we're keen to ensure that both our board members and events represent the diversity and needs of our members - geographical, through lived experiences, and conversation topics. To support this aim, and further strength our board, we will be recruiting for new board members and ambassadors in the new year, if you're interested in becoming a board member or would like to hear more, please keep a look out for the adverts in the new year or contact, Sinead Lee via [email protected] for a chat. 

We are also creating hubs within our region, which will see events being delivered on a more intimate and local basis, and aim to provide the opportunity to create meaningful connections. To strengthen our local offering, we will be aiming to utilise businesses for our events which either have strong local connections, are a Charity, or are a Micro, SME, or independent business within the area. We hosted the first of these events in September at Design West in Bristol, which was well received by the attendees and provided great insight into the needs of our members in the Bristol area. 

We're looking forward to delivering more in person and online events next year, and will be kicking off our first in person networking event on 12^th February 2025 between 12:30-2:30pm at the Horts Townhouse in Bristol, kindly sponsored by Tristone Nash. More details coming, but for now, please BOOK YOUR PLACE as this is sure to be a sell out event.

Wishing you all a great festive period and a happy and healthy new year. 

Sinead, Natasha, Claudia, Robyn, Vikki and Hazel.