Celebrating 6 years at Boo for Helen!

It was back in 2018 when I made what proved to be a great decision to join Team Boo. There were 3 of us and a couple of associates and we were based in 2 little offices in the upstairs of a church building that had been converted into a hub of the community. We’ve grown a lot since then – in our team, our learning and in our experience as a business. Reflecting over the last 6 years got me thinking about 6 of the things that stood out to me in my time at Boo.

1. Working Through a Pandemic

It’s not every year you have to adapt to working through a pandemic! But in 2020 that’s exactly what we did. As much of our work got postponed we got offered the challenge of setting up a Staff Wellbeing Centre at Southport hospital where we were able to support the incredible team of staff by providing a safe place for them to come and talk, have a brew and a sit down; we took snacks and wellbeing treats to the teams, and did whatever we could to try and give everyone a boost. Even the ducks from the pond helped out as they wondered into the wellbeing room!

It was a privilege to know that we were, in some small way, helping out and bringing the joy of connection amidst the horror and sadness that was going on around us.

2. Caring for Your Teams

We also created our Caring for your Teams programme; helping Leaders to think about how they can look after themselves and also the wellbeing of their team. It was a logical development from our Caring for Yourself programme which focusses on different areas of self care and improving personal wellbeing.

As healthcare professionals grappled with the challenges that the pandemic presented, it became paramount that support was needed to help leaders to look after themselves and their teams.

Caring for your Teams was one of the very few programmes that was permitted to be delivered in person due to the importance of supporting staff in maintaining their wellbeing in such a challenging time.

3. An HPMA Conference During An Historic Moment

At Boo we love to get the chance to get out and meet new people, make connections, help people to learn and share what we do. In September 2022 we were in Birmingham at the HPMA conference. We had a stall where we were able to share our work – we sold our very first pack of Values Coaching Cards! Our postcards were really popular and people took them to put up on their office walls. Becci was excited to be leading a session around workplace wellbeing. I can’t really finish off the story of the conference as that afternoon we got the news that The Queen had sadly passed away. The rest of the conference was cancelled and we put our mind to how we would pay our respects and how we would express that as a business.

4. Visiting Lovely Places

People who travel with work will often comment on the fact that they don’t really get to see places, just travel to them, work and then come home. And I understand that. However, with Boo I have been lucky enough to work in some beautiful places including the Isle of Wight and Guernsey where there was time to explore and be in nature when I wasn’t working. I had chips on the beach (we won’t mention the seagull attack!), fancy tea with a gorgeous sea view, coastline walks and even stayed on a farm! The programmes we delivered were pretty awesome too, meeting some inspiring people along the way.

5. Opportunity for Creativity

Those that know me well know that I am much happier being creative and connecting with people than I am sitting at a computer. Some of creative highlights have been; learning how to create great flipcharts and changing the way we do our flips at Boo – we get lots of compliments and we often get brave and try out drawing something new! Helping the team learn how to do macrame and create ‘plant danglers’ at our Christmas afternoon. Baking a variety of cakes and goodies to share with the team. Being a corporate sponsor of The Octagon theatre and watching so many amazing shows.

Encouraging the love of plants – I never imagined that we would get to the point of Becci propagating house plants and gifting one to each of us!

5. Coaching Coaching and More Coaching

As our name suggests, coaching is the core focus of our business and our work around leadership and wellbeing is all built on using a coaching approach. Over the last 6 years I have had the pleasure of meeting so many wonderful people in my coaching and seen how the hard work and determination, along with their openness to exploring ideas in coaching has enabled so many people to reach their goals and grow as a person. Only this week we were doing some number crunching around how many people have accessed coaching from Team Boo and we were amazed to see that in the last couple of years there has been a 4-fold increase! More importantly, the feedback from clients has been great and it is humbling to see what people have achieved with coaching being one of the catalysts. Our coaching enquiries generally come from recommendations from previous customers.

Coaching is my happy place and I love that there is still so much to learn and so many people to support in their journey.

A proud moment and coaching highlight this year has to be winning the Coach of the Year 2024 in the National HR Awards. A lovely trip down to London with Becci and a massive surprise to me when I won!

6. Working With Autonomy

Normally at this point in a job, I am ready to move on. But the great thing about working in Team Boo is that to an extent, we direct our own work. If there are things we want to do and they will help to grow the business, then go for it! I’m looking forward to getting our new Coaching Supervision package up and running, being part of establishing our 2 new CMI courses: Level 5 Team Coaching and Level 6 Coaching Supervision, creating a new Leadership Mini Series and of course meeting with customers old and new. We’re also planning some fun at our 12 birthday party in July! Here’s to a wonderful year 7 at Team Boo!

If you’d like to find out more about what we offer or how we can support you or your workplace, take a look at our website: www.boo-consulting.com or drop us an email to hello@boo-consulting.com

Celebrating 6 years at Boo for Helen!