We only went and won the award didn’t we! When I returned to work after a week off at the beginning of the month I’d fallen out of sync with the momentum of the lead up to the Dorset Business Awards. I was more focused on scrambling around to get the outfit components I needed for the formal event than whether I thought I’d be needing to make a winner’s speech.
Even in the few seconds before our name was called on the night I was content with whatever the outcome might be. Once “Grapevine…” was said, I didn’t have time to think about how I felt, we were on our way up there and I was saying something to the room about always wanting to win a Brit Award (this is true, I watched them religiously in the late 90s). Thank you to Esraa Al Saab for capturing this moment for me to recycle as ‘throwback’ content ten years from now when I can bear to watch it again.
If the win itself wasn’t enough of a surprise, I didn’t expect my phone go crazy with messages from friends, family, people in the room, as soon as I got back to my seat. Somehow the news was travelling fast and I thought I should probably put out something initial on LinkedIn. I didn’t overthink what I wrote, I just tried to capture the moment
“OMG we won!!” probably wasn’t the most articulate statement I’ve ever made, but the post exploded and I spent most of Friday replying to all the incredibly kind messages.
It was a nice feeling to take the award back to our team (and in one piece too!). A few people asked how the atmosphere has been in our office and I had to be honest and say it’s pretty much business as usual. Some hard work and difficult obstacles to overcome as we continue on our journey as an employee owned business.
The reality is, it never became a ‘Best Place to Work’ without tough days, many of which were long before my time, many are still ahead. A business is a microcosm of society as a whole. We’re all temporary custodians, even more so in employee ownership. I hope to see Grapevine to continue to learn from the great things we did in the past and continue to be imaginative about what else we can introduce in the future. I wrote a bit about this for World Mental Health Day.
Thank you once again for all of the support shown to us throughout this process.
Liam Toms 