Staff from Headway Cambridgeshire attended the Conference for Women in Business at Cambridge Belfry in Cambourne on Thursday 20 June. The half day conference was designed for enterprising women who want to take their businesses from good to great. Business women were able to network with each other and share advice and experiences in an informal environment.

The event was organised by Barclays, and Lindsay McDonald, Barclays Business Manager for the Eastern Region, kindly invited staff from Headway Cambridgeshire to attend and speak to the audience. Jo Monk, Senior Community Brain Injury Advisor – East Cambs, Fenland & Huntingdonshire and Lindsay Lapham, Project Manager for Headonist Pop-Up Shop, attended on behalf of Headway Cambridgeshire.

They were able to speak to the conference about the work the charity carries out across the county of Cambridgeshire in support of brain injured adults, their families and carers. They also chatted to delegates about some of the innovative ways in which Headway Cambridgeshire raises its profile and raises funds to keep the services running to a high quality. For example the Headonist Pop-Up shop which Lindsay Lapham has running very successfully over the last few months has galvanised party-goers and the local student community and raised several thousand pounds.

As well as networking and swapping ideas and good practice in business, the attendees were invited to make donations to charity and Barclays very kindly nominated Headway Cambridgeshire as the recipient, promising to quadruple the value of funds collected at the event. Those attending the conference donated £515 in a very short time.

Jo Monk of Headway Cambridgeshire said: “I addressed the audience for a few minutes and talked about Headway and then the delegates were all asked to make a donation. Whatever the donation was, Barclays then agreed to quadruple the amount so we ended up with £2060 which was amazing. We also recruited two volunteers and had some lovely discussions with the delegates who attended, who said what a brilliant cause we were.”

Headway staff really enjoyed attending the event and made some new friends and contacts in the process. We’re very grateful to Barclays for inviting us and for supporting our charity and we’re very grateful to all the delegates who took such an interest and donated money.

Thank you all.