Athena Networking is the best

Today I attended the Chingford Athena meeting which brings it to a total of 4 Athena meetings this month. It's not my usual practice but it's been a real privilege to visit all the groups in my area this month to do the Business Support Topic (BST) and on the back of that launch our Athena Walking Initiative.

I've been talking about 'Bonding and Belonging' and the importance of both of those and then taking the opportunity to remind members how we can make it all happen and grow our business on that back of it. It's all been very well accepted which is great and I can honestly say that all our groups, that's those in West Essex and the City, are really good at bonding and belonging. On my visits, it's been great to see some familiar faces and to meet new ones too. I now need to do the follow up, that will be one of my targets for next week.

The BST has been a great springboard for launching Athena Angels which is our Athena walking team and we're going to do the Maggie's Night Hike in Sept this year.  The response has been fantastic so thank you to all those who have registered their interest, I'll be in touch very soon. Having trained a team of 16 wonderful women in 2006 to do the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Walk, I'm so excited about sharing all my tips and techniques, introducing all these lovely ladies to so many great walks and seeing them experience all the great benefits of training in a team. I know we'll have a ball.

Here are my team on day one of the Breakthrough Walk.

So watch this space for updates of our progress. First step is to find out what everyone is capable of so far!