Friday night was the hotly anticipated Angels Bring Business Awards at Lincoln’s Hilton Double Tree. Over 200 of Lincolnshire’s finest business ladies all came together to celebrate their achievements – a scattering of men also attended.

 

Dressed to kill I felt amazing! Thanks again to Satori Health for getting me to this point.

I had been very kindly nominated by couple of people and then shortlisted for two awards; 

• Angels Wings Unfurled – start up business under 2 years
• Angel on Fire – Business woman of the year

The Awards were won by two amazing ladies – both who have achieved so very much. Angels Wings Unfurled went to Kirsty Gale of Red Carpet Ready and Angel on Fire to Amanda Watson of Ambitions Personnel.

What a compliment to be shortlisted against such ladies – Amanda has been in business over 15 years and turnover is in excess of £40m. Yello Story isn’t even yet 18 months old and so to be shortlisted against her was a real achievement in itself!

The evening was interesting – it seriously overran, the food was not up to the usual Double Tree standards and the misogynistic ‘comedienne’ was truly awful and a very poor choice for an event celebrating women!

During the evening, one of the organisers came up to me and said ‘Lizzie I’ve seen your nominations; your story is an inspiration, errm but obviously that’s all in confidence.’

And here lies my issue – the advocacy work that I do is primarily to break the taboo, challenge stigma and shatter misunderstanding around sexual health. I speak openly to encourage discussion and engagement. By implying her knowledge of my HIV status was in confidence, completely missed the point of why I do what I do! I tried to explain that to her – although sadly I’m not certain she understood my view point.

This does not take away from the evening being a wonderful celebration of Lincolnshire’s female successes and talent, and raised a wonderful £600+ for the chosen charity, Women For Women International. Shivonne Graham spoke for the charity and I’ll leave you with one of her lines:

‘One woman can change anything. Many women can change everything.’