Members of women's networking in line for awards
A number of women from a Telford networking group are celebrating success in award nominations.
Kim Gilmour of Connect Consultancy who runs the Telford & Shropshire Women’s Network has reached the West Midlands finals of the FSB Celebrating Small Business Awards 2023 in the Freelancer of the Year category.
She is joined by Louise Madeley of Madeleys First Aid Plus who has also been named as a finalist in the Start-up Business of the Year. Another regular, in the group, which meets monthly in Ironbridge is Sally Themans of business consultants, Good2Great who, along with her husband Johnny, has been shortlisted in the Service Excellent category.
All three will find out if they have been successful at the West Midlands final which takes place in March at the RAF Museum Midlands.
Regional finals are taking place across the country and the winners will go on to compete at the national final in May, being held at the National Conference Centre, Birmingham.
Kim said: “The group is aimed at both start-up businesses and the self-employed and it’s great to have so many successful women in our network supporting each other and sharing their knowledge and expertise. I am delighted that we will be representing Shropshire businesswomen in the FSB Small Business Awards 2023 and perhaps inspiring other women to put themselves forward for awards.”
Kim, and another member Carole Aveson of CAA Administration Services, have also been nominated for the Digital Women of the Year awards, finalists for this award will be announced in March.
The networking group has been going for several years under different guises and was in danger of closing completely during Covid. Kim took the group on and continued with online meetings and then trialled face-to-face informal meetings in a café in Ironbridge in September 2021. Since then, the group has gone from strength to strength.
