A Month of Firsts
November has been a month of firsts for me at BuildForce. I’ve been part of the team for well over a year now, and my participation with our Armed Forces Insight Day has usually involved me being in the background, helping to make sure things run smoothly for any last-minute attendees. After our wonderful Leya, a constant feature on our Insight Days left to pursue her MBA abroad, I realised I would be playing a more hands on role for our Manchester Insight Day. I have to say, I was a little nervous about this, especially as I had been sitting in my working from home bubble for the past year.
One of the things I was really looking forward to about our Insight Day was meeting some of the people I only ever speak to over the phone or via email – our Service Leavers, Veterans and Partner Organisations. One of the things I love about my job is chatting to our registrants and hearing their stories – always interesting and varied and generally having a bit of banter wherever possible. As a team we work remotely and don’t often get together in real life. It was wonderful to put faces to names and to chat to people in person. At risk of sounding a bit corny, I really do have the best team around me, and it was good to get out of the house and do things differently for a day.
It’s been a funny old-world post Covid and working from home has meant I don’t get to do much networking these days. In my previous life, much of my day to day was client facing – to the point where it’s a miracle I didn’t lose my voice on a weekly basis. Attending our Manchester Insight Day has made me realise how much I miss that in-person contact, it was a perfect way of easing me back in gently. I hope that those who attended enjoyed it as much as I did. I’m also not going to lie, as a mum trying to juggle my various hats, it was also nice to have a night away without my children in tow – another first for me.
Now that I’ve got “my eye in” so to speak, I am already looking forward to the next one which is scheduled for March and will take place in the bright lights of our nation’s capital. Roll on London…
Alex Forbes, BuildForce Support Manager & Legal Advisor