National VA Conference & Awards Ceremony Saturday 19th April 2008
Date for your diaries - the conference for next year has already been scheduled for 19th April 2008
This years event was SOLD OUT with an amazing turn out. What an energy there was in the room full of VAs and professionals meeting up again or for the first time. 70% were IAVA members as well as a very large percentage of IQPS members also.
The event was started off with a great opening by Julie French and Tony Burgess of the Academy of High Achievers with their motivation presentation on how to get out of your own way and achieve success, they even got one of the delegates to walk on broken glass to demonstrate how barriers we create are all in the mind, and that we can remove barriers to achieve what we want to. AMAZING STUFF.
After lunch, which was a great networking opportunity for the VAs, we were entertained by Dave Turner, the memory man. I can honestly say hand on heart, that the end of the session my memory actually improved, and I now have some amazing techniques to use with my trainee VAs.
The double workshop was accompanied by Angela Dunbar, our marketing guru, who talked to us about how to choose a niche market as well as how to find them. Many went away with a clearer idea of where to focus their business, although this was great revision for my VA Mastery Course trainees!
BUT the icing on the cake was the Awards Ceremony, this was just amazing and so exciting. You could see the faces of the finalists waiting for the announcement. Jacky Workman of the IAVA and Linda Barton of IQPS were the two judges who had an amazing challenge to choose the winners for the over and under 18months categories as well as the runners up.
Winner for Over 18 Months is Vanessa Anderson of Andersons Remote Office Services and runner up was Alex Greer of Just Too Busy. Then for the Under 18 months Category the winner is Alexia Padgham of Your VA with Runner Up being Lisa Trouliotis of Virtual Office Support Ltd.
Well done ladies, truly deserving.
Here are just a few of the comments from the day:
Hi Carmen:
Just a note to say well done on Saturday. The conference was excellent, and the quality of the delegates excellent. You did a great job.
Very best wishes
Barbara Smith, Laterooms.com
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WOW c'cers, what an absolute amazing day - the first ever National VA Conference was a huge success.
I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who were able to come along, say hello and put names to what normally are virtual faces.
Personally I had a fantastic day and one of the WOW moments for me was whilst doing my 'bit' on the step :)) when I asked how many IAVA members were in the room and seeing all those hands raised was awesome. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your great support.
Again I would like to say a huge congratulations to the winners of the VA Awards:
Established under 18 month - Winner: Alexia Padgham - Runner up: Lisa Trouliotis
Established over 18 months - Winner: Vanessa Anderson - Runner up: Alex Greer
We had a great speaker called Dave Turner who specialises in teaching memory skills. What a guy, funny, energetic and for some of us a fitness trainer! I will leave the other cc'ers to let you know all about that one. :)
Julie French and Tony Burgess of the Academy of High Achievers both gave great inspiration and drive to what we are all able to do, showing you anything is possible.
Angela Dunbar of Dunbar Training and Development gave a thought provoking speech, making us all look a little deeper at our target market and focusing on who we really want to work with.
Now for those of you who are thinking they have missed out on this great day, the good news is all speakers have been recorded and Carmen will soon be providing us a link for you to download - there will be a cost for this.
For your diaries, the conference for next year has already been scheduled for 19th April 2008
I will now hand this over to you all ....
With very best wishes
Jacky
(Jacky Workman, Chairman of IAVA)
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Dear Carmen,
Just a quick email to congratulate you on an absolutely wonderful day - I had so much fun putting faces to names and signatures on the forum, and chatting with everyone! I'm truly flabbergasted at some of the incredible feats performed in the sessions - I'm torn between Mary walking over glass or me remembering 20 items - I'm not sure which is the greatest achievement!
Well done for such a well run and ground breaking event - I'm definitely booking next year and I'd be happy to help support / organise too.
Will catch up soon properly, but meanwhile take care and have a well earned glass of champagne!
C.
Caroline
(Society of Virtual Assistants)
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Hi everyone!
Firstly, I'd like to echo the thanks and admiration expressed by others to:
Carmen MacDougall
Jacky Workman
Linda Barton
The Sponsors & Speakers
Whilst just 'echoing' these comments isn't very original I don't know what else to say except to add my own big 'thank you' for the work and effort that went into this FANTASTIC day. This by the way includes Alex Greer, Alexia Padgham and the rest of the team that made yesterday possible.
Jacky has already mentioned those of us who were the lucky Runner's Up and Winners so obviously the final outcome was brilliant for me! Having said that, I would like to say very, very well done to all the other ladies who were nominated. When we all stood up and I saw who I was up against the 'Positive Mental Attitude' I'd been employing in the run up to Saturday completely deserted me and I was very glad to be at the back of the room so I could sit down unnoticed when the winner was announced. To say I was shocked is an understatement - another understatement is the fact that I was 'thrilled' to be chosen because the word (and I can't think of another one!) just doesn't do justice to what I did, and am still feeling!
My feet are sadly firmly on the ground because I had to work when I got back yesterday evening and, although I've had a great morning (interview with our local BBC radio station, who has given me her mobile number and I have to call her next Friday with a view to becoming her Lifestyle PA - howzat!!!!), I'm now about to start work again - popping bottles of bubbly will have to wait until next weekend, but that's okay because I'll combine it with my birthday! :-)
Jacky what can one say about Dave Turner to express his wonderful, vibrant personality - not to mention of course the fantastic memory tools he supplied us with. I'm with Donna here - not only is he in every room, but he greets me at the garden gate :-) Brilliant!!! Can't wait for the downloadable version of the conference. He's definitely on my list of courses to take!
Tony Burgess & Julie French - equally great. I'd actually attended one of their day courses last Monday so knew some of the tools they offered us. If they're used properly, and with practice, they work.
I thought I'd already learned a lot and certainly still had my own version of my 'niche' market, however Angela Dunbar's presentation has made me rethink this area again and there were a number of sections that I found very, very useful. Can't wait to use my 'voucher' for the marketing plan I have!
To the organisers, thank you once again for a fantastic day (and not just because gained the award) . It was so nice to meet many of the ladies I have 'spoken' to here on cyberchat - some on the telephone but I still hadn't met them until yesterday, the workshops were great, the venue was great, everything was GREAT! 19th April 2008 is already in my diary - I wouldn't miss it for anything.
I'll keep everyone posted on how the PR campaign goes and what comes of it and I'll also let you know what actually comes of meeting the local BBC presenter today when I call her next week. How cool would it be to become the first Midlands VA-PA to the BBC presenters (she mentioned the possibility of between 2-5 presenters)????
Hope you all didn't mind this being so long! Now - nose to the grindstone as the 'bread n butter' still has to be paid for!
ttfn
Vanessa :-)
Vanessa Anderson
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Hi CC'ers
WOW ... yesterday at the Milton Keynes VA Conference and Awards, I can truly put down to being one of the most exciting, informative and business educational days I have ever attended - I have taken away with me a wealth of information ranging from 'mind mapping', 'memory aid' and how to 'target your niche market' that I know will assist in pushing my business to hopefully - with a lot of applied instruction - another dimension and expansion.
To those of you who didn't attend for one reason or another, hope that next year you would consider and we can all start to put faces to names; it was good to meet up with some members that I have myself only been in e-mail contact with and great to meet new VAs and VA startups. Sorry Lilach I didn't get to spend more time with you - perhaps next time!
Congratulations to Carmen for your grit and determination, hard work and dedication and also in getting together a fantastic team to co-ordinate the VA conferencing and awards events that I can see will continue from year to year with growing numbers of attendees. Thank you also to Linda Barton of IQPS and Jacky Workman of our good old IAVA for judging and candidates put forward to pick out the finalists of which there were 9 all told split between two categories - under 18 months old businesses and over 18 month old businesses.
I myself was selected as a finalist and although not a runner up or an outright winner, as far as I am concerned, I am still a winner and deem it an honour to have been selected for the very first VA of the Year award... I was also lucky enough to win a bottle of champagne and two boxes of chocolates in the raffle, so went home last evening a very happy though exhausted proud VA.
Many many congratulations go to the two runners up of the categories and the two outright winners - those who are IAVA members, will leave it to you to identify yourselves.... well deserved..!!
I found out recently that I have been selected to run in the FSB Small Business Champion 2007 awards and wait to hear if I have gone through to the next selection round - fingers crossed eh?!
Catch up with you all soon; having a break this week so will catch up with you all on my return w/c 30th.
Tina
Tina Woollard MIQPS
Finalist in first ever "VA of the Year" Award of its kind
Regional Finalist in 2005 dti e-commerce awards
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Dear Carmen
This is a quick message to say how much I enjoyed the VA conference yesterday.
It was a great success. The talks were very inspiring and it was a great opportunity to meet with other VAs and get to know what other ladies are doing and how they are going about their business. It was very encouraging for me, as I'm still a little nervous about starting up.
Thank you for organizing this wonderful event and for putting so much work into it, it all paid off and also thank you to the girls (Suzanne, Alex and Alexia?) who helped make the event a success.
Grazie!
Martina
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So good to meet all of you that made it. Hope more can come next year, not that I’m wishing my life away……………..
Carmen – thank you a thousand-fold. Who knows what you’ve started!
Happy Sunday all.
Donna
PA Onlilne
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Hello Carmen
Now that the dust is settling slightly after the Conference, I wanted to extend my own personal “Didn’t you do well” to you.
My goodness, the Conference was a huge and successful achievement and I think you should feel enormously proud for bringing it off.
You did it and you did it in the UK first and I am really pleased for you that it went so well and the day was full of goodwill and triumphs.
Good for you and WELL DONE!!
Suzanne
PS
The speakers were great and I’m going to take away an AHA moment from those two to win a competition with my dog (oh, and get my fifth regular client)
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Hi Carmen
Just wanted to drop you a quick lane to let you know that I really enjoyed the VA Conference on Saturday. It was lovely to meet you face to face and all the other VAs and 'fledgling' VAs also. I thought the speakers were really first class - interesting, informative and humorous with it - I really got a lot from listening to all of them. Very well done to you and your team for organising such a great event. Thank You!
Thanks again for the conference and, indeed for all your help and support to date
Kind regards
Sharon
Sharon Burroughs
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Hello Carmen
Just a quick note to say a huge thank you for having the drive to organise Saturday. I found it really inspiring and motivating.
Can you please put my name down to attend next year’s event. I definitely want to make it an annual event in my diary.
Thank you also for donating the coaching prize which I am so fortunate to have won.
Thank you again.
Kind regards
Joanna
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Hi Carmen and team
Just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed the first ever National VA Conference on Saturday. The event was well organised; the speakers were excellent and motivational; and it was great to see so much support and interest from established VAs, those who are considering becoming VAs, and from so many sponsors.
What an achievement - many congratulations.
Sharon
Sharon Smith
Swan Virtual Assistance
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Morning everyone!
Just to say it was really great to meet up with many of you on Saturday, and put faces to names.
What a fantastic day - there was such an electric atmosphere - I'm sure there's never been a networking event like it! And as for the speakers, well, you really did choose the best for us Carmen, I'm sure everyone came away with some real gems of inspiration, techniques and tips. Does what's his name? ... oh yes, Dave ..., realise he has a fan club, and is he free on 19th April 2008, if not, best we change the date of the conference eh!!
Do try and make it next year if you can - it really is the VA event of the year not to be missed, when us "Virtuals" go "Non-virtual"!!
Hope you all have a great week.
Alexia
Alexia Padgham
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I just had to drop you an email and thank you and your team for all the hard work that I know went into arranging Saturday's conference.
I had a fantastic time, everyone was so welcoming and friendly, the sessions were inspiring and I have even managed to post a message on cyberchat this morning so thanks once again, and I shall definitely be at next year's event - I'm even thinking of attending the IQPS event on 7.7.07. You all deserve the praise.
Regards
Julie
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Thank you for a wonderful day on Saturday. I am so glad I made the
effort and attended. It was so worthwhile. I feel I am definitely
starting to make it happen for me now!
I found the seminars very interesting and enlightening and am putting
the information to good use already! I also found the networking with
other like-minded people very inspiring.
Thank you once again Carmen for your help and support
Take care,
Kind regards,
Barbara Johnson
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Hello Carmen
It was a pleasure to meet you on Saturday and thank you for putting together
a fantastic conference.
The speakers and seminars were excellent and even though I'm yet to take the
leap and set up my own business, I found the content extremely useful.
Personally, the highlight for me was meeting all the inspiring VAs already
in business and I look forward to joining them soon!
Thanks again
Lucy
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Dear Carmen
Just wanted to say thank you so much for organising such a successful VA Conference and congratulations.
It was a great day and lovely to put a face to so many names that you hear all the time. The speakers were very inspiring, I always enjoy listening to the NLP speakers, refreshing the motivation again.
I didn’t get to speak to you as you were always with someone or doing something and I bet you were exhausted on Sunday.
Time to put your feet up now!
Looking forward to next year.
Best wishes
Beverley
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Hi Carmen
I really thought it went incredibly well – I can well appreciate the time and effort it takes to pull off an event like this.
From what I could see, everything seemed to go very smoothly – and everyone enjoyed themselves. We got lots and lots of feedback.
I think the recording of the whole day will prove really valuable, Jamie had quite a few people say to him, that they were looking forward to listening to the event again, and pick out bits they missed or couldn’t remember. I think it will be fantastic tool for you to use, and market for all kinds of things, especially towards the one for next year.
I was really impressed with the NLP guys on the first speech, I’ve done a bit on NLP, but those two were brilliant, really hit home on some good points.
I bet you’ve been overwhelmed with the number of emails you’ve received back following the event – I bet you’ve had loads.
Look forward to catching up.
Thanks a lot
Tracey
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Dear Carmen and all of your ‘Team’
Jenny and I would like to say a huge THANK YOU for such a fantastic day on Saturday. We felt really honored to be part of the first ever VA conference in the UK – here’s to April 19th 2008!
The energy and enthusiasm from everyone involved was fantastic. It was great to be able to put faces to names and meet so many lovely people who have built up successful businesses- very inspiring.
The workshops were brilliant – we still can’t get over Mary walking on the glass!!! Angela’s niche marketing has really struck a cord with us - talk about ‘lightbulb’ moment’ - we have really got down to business today and decided exactly who we are aiming at instead of approaching the entire World for their admin business!!! I spent Sunday astounding my children with my amazing ‘recall 20 obscure items’ trick – they think I’m some kind of genius!
Seriously though, huge congratulations Carmen for organizing what is clearly going to be a ‘must’ for all VA’s in the future – it is already highlighted in Octopus’s calendar! Oh and don’t forget to congratulate your husband for having the initial idea – they have their moments don’t they!
Alexia, Jane, Alex and Suzanne did such a slick job of organizing the day so well. Please don’t hesitate to call on us for future events as we would be delighted to offer our help and support.
May we also pass on our congratulations to the winners – well done everyone – well deserved!
With kind regards
Jo and Jenny
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Thank you so much Carmen and everyone who helped – I had a wonderful day. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet you all and the seminars were excellent. I thought the atmosphere was fabulous and the day just flew by! I would have liked to of spent more time chatting with you all, so I’m sorry if I didn’t get the chance to say hi properly!
Roll on next year…!!!
Lilach
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Hi Carmen
Just a quick note to say what a fantastic day I had on Saturday. It
was great to meet everyone and the itinerary for the day was fabulous.
Not only did we improve our memory techiniques but we came away with
some marketing ideas from Angela and positive thinking from AHA. I am
certainly looking forward already to attending next year.
It has put me back on focus for my full time VA business rather than
full-time somewhere else and part time VA business.
Anyway, thanks again for Saturday. Well done to you and your team who
pulled it all together, and a bit thanks to the sponsors and speakers
who added to the event.
Speak to you soon
Jacqui Dalgleish
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Congratulations Carmen on the success of the first National VA Conference and Awards. Congratulations also to the winners and runners up. It sounds as though you all had a great day and what an opportunity to meet up with other VA's.
I couldn't attend the event this year but will book up for the next one.
Kind regards
Marilyn
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Dear Carmen
Sorry I have not written sooner but I would just like to thank you again for a great day on Saturday. I believe it was a wonderful success and very interesting. It was also good to meet other VAs and also the ones I had only had email contact with before.
Well done.
With best wishes
Kim
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Hi Carmen,
Congratulations by the way on what sounds by all accounts like an outstanding success last weekend... looking forward very much to coming next year, not going to miss the next one.
Many thanks
Geraldine
