What a November! As we head into the festive season it is always a busy time at J&PR and 2023 has been one of the busiest…
A spot of Lego Play
Sophie’s professional highlight for November was an office Lego Serious Play session with Tim Ryan. It was lots of fun to get creative and Sophie loves working with her hands so it made a nice change to typing things up - a perfect way to spend techtimeout tuesday! Sophie says she has to give a special mention to Si who made the session even more enjoyable with his backstory for Dave the Duck - a real tearjerker.
The Lego Play session with Mammoth Coaching and Tim was also Rhea’s professional highlight. Using Lego builds to communicate with the whole team and reveal information and ideas that can really build J&PR over the coming months was fantastic!
And it’s a hat trick for the Lego with Si’s professional highlight… he said: “It was a really thought-provoking and fun team-building session involving Lego - sounds strange, but I learned a lot more about my colleagues and myself (including the fact that I'm actually quite rubbish at building a duck out of bricks).”
Birthday celebrations and wedding reminiscing!
We said a huge Happy Birthday to Freya who turned 21 in November! Freya received a pink-themed surprise party to mark the occasion and also a visit to Motorcycle Live with her Dad! She got to see and sit on lots of bikes and has a lot to consider for when she does her full A licence…
Sophie also marked a birthday - with a second trip to Iceland! It's officially Sophie’s favourite place on earth and she says she felt so lucky to see even more of such a beautiful country. Her and partner Aid still didn't manage to see the Northern Lights though - a great excuse to get booking the 2024 trip…
Last month Dani’s highlight was Shropshire - this month it's the south of the country! Half term was spent visiting her mum near Brighton so cold trips to the seaside and a very wet Halloween walking the southern streets. What Dani thinks might actually be her highlight of the year was taking her children to the place where she and her husband got married over 15 years ago and they recreated a load of their wedding pictures! The children got really into it, much more than Dani thought they would, and she says it is great to have these photos to look at now.
Client celebrations
It wasn’t only J&PR staff celebrating in November - ABC Hoo Nursery earned a third outstanding rating in a row from Ofsted and promoting the accolade in the press was Tony’s professional highlight. He said it was another amazing achievement for the ABC Day Nursery group and a really positive story to work on.
And Freya’s professional highlight was The Joseph Ribkoff event at Carvell on the square! The people she met were lovely and it was a great display of the new range. Carvèll on the square and Carvell lingerie and swimwear officially relaunched in November with Tony Christie opening the store in the Square and High Sheriff of Shropshire Mandy Thorn MBE DL opening the lingerie and swimwear store on Butcher Row just moments later!
Cataracts and content
Tony’s personal highlight was having his second cataract operation completed - he can see again! Not that the team noticed Tony stepping back in any way - the content has continued to come thick and fast as we prepare for January’s business supplements and the Christmas stories!
Rhea’s personal highlight was volunteering for two hugely successful fireworks displays within three days! Rhea was on hand in the VIP Sponsor lounge for the West Mid Showground charity Bonfire and Fireworks display and then manned the entrance gate at the Oakmeadow School Fireworks display two days later and both were chilly, a bit wet, but lots of fun!
Simon’s professional highlight was content-themed but from a PR coverage point of view, he said it was really pleasing to have two stories featuring clients on the front page of the same Business Star this month - he always loves seeing our clients in print!
And finally… a new client…
Dani’s professional highlight was working with Lingen Davies cancer charity and getting to know more about the amazing work they do. She said they really are incredible and she thinks she will be in tears a few times writing patient stories for them over the coming months! How great to be on board with such a fantastic organisation that makes such a difference!
And that’s November! It is hard to believe that our next highlights blog will see us waving goodbye to 2023 and heading into 2024… the year has flown by
