Back from a few days in surprisingly sunny Telford at the EOA Employee Ownership Annual Conference. My head is full of thoughts from everything I heard and saw across the event. Thoughts on what more we can be doing in our business, on the importance of the community and collaboration for EO businesses, on the scale of EO in the UK and the potential influence it may have on re-defining the role of ‘business’ in our changing world.
I’d like to say a special thank you to my friends Emma Hardy, Theresa Osborne and Lesley Keets from Blue Sky Financial Planning for adopting me as one of their own throughout the conference. Their kindness went far beyond our EO connection and I really enjoyed their company for the three days of this event.
I was immensely proud to hear Jess Comolly-Jones speak so passionately about the work our friends Rubicon People Partnership have done in the past 12 months, inspired by attending last year’s conference, and to see our friends (and client) Salad‘s name across the conference. They were flying the flag for our south coast EO community quite literally across the venue (that banner in the main atrium was huge!).
Thank you also to my co-owners at Grapevine for sending me to represent them at this event. It’s a busy time for us as we make huge strides forward with our business and not possible on this occasion for others to attend. They were there with me in spirit though in every conversation I had with a new contact, as I shared stories from our EO adventure so far.
Most importantly, the vegan food options were amazing. I’d go back to the Telford International Centre again next year for that alone! 💚
Liam Toms 