#WOW Jacqueline Gold is a fan of Me Finder!!
Yesterday was a crazy day in Twitter world. Jacqueline Gold – Chief Executive of Ann Summers and Knickerbox – chose Me Finder as one of her three #WOW businesses of the day.
#WOW or Women On Wednesday is a campaign which Jacqueline launched on Twitter to support women who have started their own businesses. Each Wednesday between 1pm and 3pm, she asks women with businesses to tweet her an overview of their company and a link to their website. Jacqueline then select her 3 favourites and retweets these to her followers.
It was just after school pickup and I was in Topsy Turvy softplay at Brent Cross with a friend and our six kids (between us). I shrieked! I couldn’t believe I was reading “My #WOW winners this week are @ClaireShowTell, @StyleCompanion, @_SkiSquirrel” . Wow wow WOW indeed! I then had a a lovely tweet from Jacqueline to say
“Well done Claire, as a mum myself I love this idea, good luck with the rest of the week”
Sam (7) was calling out his Pokemon score on his DS this morning, shouting out numbers as it went up and up. I felt the same excitement looking at my Twitter followers! My only concern is that I don’t upset anyone with my lack of Twitter etiquette – as a novice I am very much finding my own way. Thankyou to everyone who is following @ClaireShowTell on Twitter. Having an idea, setting up your own company and manufacturing a product to distribute globally when you’ve never done it before is a hugely daunting task, having a merry band of followers with me makes a big difference. Follow my progress and please talk to me on Twitter @ClaireShowTell or fb!
Thanks @Jacqueline_Gold I am a big fan!!!
Me Finder is a Jacqueline Gold #WOW Winner!
http://twitter.com/#!/Jacqueline_Gold
Hello New Zealand!
I’m absolutely delighted that things are taking off for Liz and Sarah with Me Finder downunder…
Liz and I have been really good friends since we met in London over twenty years ago. We celebrated New Year 2010 with Liz and her husband Mike and their four gorgeous girls at their house in Auckland where we met Sarah and her husband. Liz was raving about Me Finder and I asked her if she’d like to be the distributor for New Zealand and Australia.
Kids Show and Tell Downunder was born! Here’s their new website www.mefinder.co.nz
And it’s going so well for them, Me Finder will be appearing on TV1’s Breakfast Show on a Saturday coming up soon tvnz.co.nz/breakfast-news . The House of Travel travel company which has x80 stores around NZ are doing a spot on the show and talking about travel gadgets… they will be talking about the MeFinder. Fantastic!!
There’s also a lovely write-up of Me Finder in Little Treasures magazine (www.treasures.co.nz) – a great source for parenting advice and articles. Thanks to Vanessa Johnson for capturing Me Finder so perfectly!
As seen on TV! ITV Daybreak features Me Finder …
Phil Reays Smith reported live from the British Invention Show and selected my invention – the award-winning Me Finder – as “one of two new products to watch” for ITV Daybreak, ITV’s flagship breakfast programme. It was hugely exciting and a real honour to be chosen from all the inventions at the show.
The TV crew were really friendly and after a mega-quick run through, we were on!
Live TV. What an experience. Thank goodness it was 6am in the morning so I didn’t have to worry about it all day! My three children were such superstars, particularly given that they’d been woken so early but they really enjoyed it. They went to school really chuffed they’d been on the telly with mummy. I had to tell their teachers they weren’t making it up.
Thanks ITV Daybreak!
2 awards for invention in 1 week
Winning one award is fantastic, but coming home with two was just amazing!
Me Finder – proud winner of
European Female Inventors and Innovators Network Special Recognition Award 2011 &
British Female Inventors and Innovators Network Special Recognition Award 2011
We are now qualified for the British Invention Show & Awards next week – keep your fingers-crossed for a hat-trick of awards for Me Finder!
http://www.britishinventionshow.com/
We love Halloween!
Or as my eldest son said last year
“Mummy, this is the best day of my life”
And Sam didn’t just mean he’d had a great day, he meant Halloween is the best day of his life – dressing-up, in as scary a costume as he can find, whilst collecting a shed-load of sweets. If you’re 6, he has a point.
Halloween is a great neighbourhood event, a chance to get to know people and promote some community spirit.
I’m a big believer in community
Last year my mother-in-law lamented that she’d bought lots of sweets for Halloween but she hadn’t had any children knock on her door, which was a real shame. A survey this year, commissioned by Play England, found that 79% of adults believe community spirit has weakened since they were a child.
But communities don’t just happen, we create them
At the very least we should know our neighbours. So, Halloween is a good excuse to get out and about and meet a few people.
At the forefront of parents’ minds is child safety. It’s always really important but at this time of year there are some added challenges to being a parent and looking out for your kids. Our children are out and about, usually after dark, knocking on the doors of houses in the neighbourhood and taking sweets from people they don’t know. If we didn’t know it was Halloween, we’d think we had all gone mad. There are many ways to celebrate.
Organised events
Checkout your community for organized events; the local library, shopping centre or community centre. As Nancy McBride says from the National Center for Missing Children “They may organize an event where kids can come, have a good time, do different things as well as getting candy but they give you a little bit better control over the environment and where your kids are going”.
A neighbourhood party
Organise a party yourself and invite people in your neighbourhood. You don’t have to do all the work and prepare everything. If people ask if they can help, say yes. Or ask people to help – to bring a plate of biscuits or to come the day before to help decorate.
It feels more relaxed and communal if everyone is allowed to pitch-in
Group “trick or treat”
Organise a group trick or treat where you live, so you don’t have to go too far afield and it’s supervised.
Safe Trick or treating
1. Safety in numbers
- Children should only go out in groups, older ones looking out for younger ones.
- Consider a buddy system – group the kids into twos – it’s easier for them to look out for one friend than ten. Encourage them to hold hands – they will probably be glad to, given all the ghostly stuff going on!
- Parents or trusted adults should go, especially if there are small children.
2. Plan ahead
- Know how to recognize who is up for children knocking on their door, which houses have sweets. Usually, people with a light on or some kind of Halloween decoration
- Don’t forget to decorate your house – leave a bowl of sweets on the doorstep if you are out trick or treating.
- Let your neighbours know you are coming – print off this leaflet Halloween we are Trick or Treating and post through letterboxes, telling your neighbours to leave you a Halloween “sign” so you know you can knock…
3. Know the rules
“NO GO”
- Never go into houses
- Never go near cars/ vehicles
Tell an adult if you feel it’s “too spooky” !
Stay together
Older children, agree a time you have to be home
Know what to do if you get lost (wear a Me Finder™ which displays your phone number or write it on a piece of paper)
4. Consider limiting the route
You can incorporate some other activities too. Your children don’t have to knock on every door in your neighbourhood for two hours. Smaller children will get just as much of a kick out of going to half a dozen houses – they’ll be tired from the over-excitement and the lateness of the hour anyway. You can go home, check-out your sweets and do some other fun activities.
Checkout www.coloring-page.net for great pictures to print off and colour. There’s more Halloween images, like the ones on our leaflet, at www.halloweenclipart.com which are great for decorations or making a collage.
And for some fantastic Halloween treats look no further than Annabel Karmel’s wonderful (free) recipes at http://www.annabelkarmel.com/recipes/exclusive-recipes/exclusive-halloween-recipes Annabel has been in our house since our eldest was 5 months old, no cooking or baking is complete without her great ideas and guidance. We’re making spider cupcakes!
Stay safe & enjoy this season’s great family celebrations :-)
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