Thanks to a call from Ilona at Made in Yorkshire I was lucky enough to have been invited to attend a conservative event at The Gherkin to promote UK manufacturing, and in my case to represent Yorkshire Manufacturing.
I was extremely excited and honoured to be considered. I have worked hard over the last few years promoting our business, since being handed the reigns by my father and taking over the position of Managing Director. I have been pushing myself to improve and having graduated from the Goldman Sachs course for business last year, I have continued to do so. However despite all this, I dislike leaving Yorkshire and am not very London Savvy!
I arrived at The Gherkin, transported, by a lovely taxi driver who knew London like the back of his hand. I went through airport style security and after a quick body search (I always set off the alarms and look unnecessarily nervous), I was in!
The
venue was beautiful with fantastic views over the London skyline, it was lit by
soft candle light which made the event feel even more intimate.
After a
short drinks reception Mr Rees-Mogg arrived and gave a short speech about the
conservative views on Manufacturing in the UK and how they were trying to help
UK businesses make excellent trade links.
I
was one of the lucky ones who was able to have a quick chat with him and tell
him about why I think it is so important for local Manufactures to get together
and to buy locally where possible. Groups like Made in Yorkshire and Made in
the Midlands are invaluable to local businesses enabling them to make contacts locally
and support each other. Mr Rees-Mogg was very patient and listened to my
thoughts on the issues that British Manufactures face, as well as my views that
the British brand is still very strong and perceived as a quality product. We also discussed what help we need from the
government to help promote and market our businesses as British brands.
The
conversation then turned to Cricket as Mr Rees-Mogg is an avid fan, luckily for
me it only stretched as far as knowing Yorkshire Cricket is in Headingly which
is as far as my knowledge extends on the subject!
So after a lovely event with IIona and the ladies from Made in the Midlands I headed back to the hotel for some much needed shut eye.
After successfully navigating the tube network on the way down I was determined to do the same again, until I realised there were severe delays on the tube network so I ordered myself an Uber.
Well . I managed to get a new Uber driver who didnt know the area well and managed to drive past Kings Cross Station twice!! I should have followed my own advice and got a local London taxi cab! However, as luck would have it my train was delayed by 10 minutes (otherwise I would have missed it) so I jumped on the 1st carriage I could find.
So picture this, I am feeling rather hot and weighed down with luggage and still need to navigate from 1st class right through the train (which was moving at this point!) down to standard class at the other end. Luckily, my trip was clearly blessed, as a very nice conductor upgraded me to 1st class for a very reasonable price which meant I could work on the way back and arrive back in the office in record time feeling refreshed and ahead of the workload. Result!