This week’s Working From Diary is brought to you by Jennifer, our Head of Business Tourism!
Each week we’re asking a member of the team to provide us with their WFH diary to give you an idea of what we’re all up to whilst at home!
About Jennifer 👋
Jenny is our Head of Business Tourism and lives at home with her husband John and 10 year old daughter, Isabel.
Morning
I’m not going to lie – since being in lockdown I’ve loved not having my alarm go off at 6:30am every morning! Family breakfast to start and then a quick check to see what school work Isabel is expected to do and a look over my emails to see if anything urgent needs tackling first thing.
I am fortunate enough to have plenty of space at home to separate ‘work’ from ‘home’ which I think is really important to allow you to switch your headspace from one to the other. Once in the study I can shut the door to the outside world and get on with my work. However, throwing home-schooling into the mix makes it a lot more challenging to balance everything. It was important to set up a bit of a routine to help manage our time.
Although we have a routine – it’s flexible and changes daily depending on my work calendar. I try to spend some quality time helping my daughter get started with her Maths and English work online so that she can carry on independently while I get through some work. Although I am a qualified primary school teacher – it makes no difference when trying to teach your own child! I swear she would never speak to her teachers the way she does to me!
This week we are focusing on recovery planning and have set up a series of focus groups for our convention bureau partners so we can start to share our ideas and collaborate on sales and marketing activity to aid the city’s recovery.
This morning I’m dialling into an ICCA UK&I Chapter Meeting via Zoom where we will get updated on what Visit Britain, and other regions, are doing to support destination’s recovery for conference and events.
Afternoon
At home I always take a lunch break, something I was guilty of not doing when in the office, and I find this makes me more productive in the afternoon.
Today I have an MIA (Meetings Industry Association) Board Meeting to discuss an exciting new project they are working on. I was delighted to be elected onto the Board of Directors with the MIA in February to represent the destination members. Since lockdown began, I’ve hosted three webinars bringing together convention bureaus from around the UK to discuss challenges and opportunities under the ‘Recover and Resilience’ theme. It’s so useful to hear how other cities are managing and some great ideas have been shared amongst the group. It’s fantastic that everyone is working so collaboratively which is a real positive that has come out of this work.
Club Liverpool, our conference ambassador programme, is going from strength to strength and we are working on bids and developing our pipeline even during lockdown. The work of Club Liverpool in identifying local individuals who could bring a conference or event to the city is really important in ensuring we attract conferences to aid the city’s recovery. We are always keen to hear from anyone who could influence or bring a conference to Liverpool as we offer a wide range of support free of charge. This afternoon we are continuing to draw up our plans for a campaign to recruit new ambassadors to help us on our mission to secure future conferences for our city.
Every day all the LCB team catch up by Zoom to talk about all kinds – work, gossip, life in general. It’s a good opportunity to let off steam and have a chat like you would in the office. I miss my team a lot so I really look forward to this call every day.
Evening
I really enjoy cooking and it’s been so lovely to have time to prepare meals and sit down to eat as a family. This is something I never got to do during the week as Isabel was picked up by grandparents and would eat at their house. Isabel sometimes helps but she prefers baking so at least once a week we bake together. This week we made fudge and it was delicious!
I try to go out for a walk and get some fresh air every evening as I’ve been sat down all day long!
Afterwards I either do some reading towards my Masters in Cities, Culture and Creativity which I’m studying at LJMU, complete the next lesson learning the keyboard or have a go at the Duolingo app which I’m using to try and learn German as my sister moved to Germany last year.