JEDI MATTERS Collective

Want to know what went down at JEDI MATTERS Collective LGBTQ+ Voices event? Here's our 4️⃣ key takeaways from this inspiring event: ⚪ Treat everyone as individuals - the experiences of everyone within the LGBTQ+ community are different. People will be at different stages of their personal journeys. Some will be more readily open to talk than others. The challenges and experiences of the different identities within the community are unique and need their own nuanced approach too. Never assume anything about anyone, this rule should apply to all people. And instead approach with kindness and, importantly, always ask how you can support someone rather than make an assumption about what they need. ⚫ Visibility helps destigmatize attitudes and empower difference, but there’s still a long way to go - brands like the Gay Farmer & Brighton Gin are pioneering the way to shift the narrative, helping remove stereotypes and fear that some people still hold. The more that can be done now to normalize words like gay, queer or trans, through visibility the more accepting future generations will be of the community. Small incremental changes have a huge impact long term. 🔵 Being active allies -  Amie wonderfully shared that ‘allyship is when people in the room support you even when you’re not there’. Allies have an active role to play in calling out bad behaviour as well as to lift up individuals. The result of such actions can be hugely impactful. This was especially pertinent in recruitment where people in marginalized groups, like those in the LGBTQ+ community, will be less confident to put their hat in the ring for a role or promotion.   🌈 Rainbow Washing - When is it ok for brands to support Pride? There were mixed views in the room. On the one hand brands who cash in on this one calendar moment (fact- did you know there’s actually 280+ Pride events throughout the year!) & don’t evidence they are doing the work throughout year is inauthentic, consumers and the community can see through it. On the other side, some of the panel thought that any publicity is good publicity so whether it’s a pub putting up bunting or a brand creating a rainbow pack it’ll all contribute to normalizing and supporting the LGBTQ+ movement. Whatever the view, the panel were united that businesses using Pride as a way to cover up bad behaviour is never acceptable. Huge thanks to our esteemed panel: Kathy Caton MBE - Founder of Brighton Gin Krishnan Doyle - Managing Director of CoreRecruit Sam Feller - Founder of Popcorn Shed Amie Burke - Inclusive Programs Manager at IGD (Institute of Grocery Distribution) Mark Dyer - Founder of The Gay Farmer And to Billy O'Reilly for being an incredible host, allowing space for such great conversations to emerge, and Nate Roberts for welcoming us at The Lucky Saint pub. #lgbtqai+ #networking #connection #inclusion #allyship #belonging

Last night was a dream! When Pip Murray asked if I wanted to organise an LGBTQAI+ panel and networking event on behalf of JEDI MATTERS Collective, I was hesitant. Never had I ever hosted a panel, never had I ever organised a networking event. But saying yes has lead to one of the most rewarding moment's of my career to date. From discovering so many brilliant LGBTQAI+ business people in the FMCG space, to hearing of all the amazing things people are doing as well as learning of the areas that need addressing. It's a pleasure to have spoken to and connected with so many inspiring and motivating people. I want to call out a few people who were an immense support. Jasmine Upshall-Moodie was the first person I spoke to and instilled so much confidence to push on. Nate Roberts expertly co-ordinated the event space and was a massive support in the early brainstorming stage. Turning the Lucky Saint | B Corp™ pub into the perfect venue. Pip Murray and Kitty Wright as part of Pip & Nut | B Corp's DE&I committee provided much needed perspective. Thank you to the JEDI MATTERS Collective leaders, Sacha Harvey, Steve Kearns, Adam Wade and Pip Murray, for giving me the platform to host the event on such an important topic. Harry Petty for dealing with my last minute nerves and constant musing. I was fortunate to have an absolute dream of a panel. Everyone brought their own perspective and opinions. All of which made for such an interesting discussion that felt like it could've gone on for hours. Huge thank you to you all! Kathy Caton MBE - Founder of Brighton Gin Krishnan Doyle - Managing Director of CoreRecruit Sam Feller - Founder of Popcorn Shed Amie Burke - Inclusive Programs Manager at IGD (Institute of Grocery Distribution) Mark Dyer - Founder of The Gay Farmer Thanks to everyone who made the effort to come and support, hopefully connections were made and this is the domino for more things to come! #lgbtqai+ #networking #connection #inclusion #allyship #belonging

This week JEDI MATTERS Collective is organising an LGBTQ+ Voices in FMCG at the Lucky Saint Pub, hosted by our brilliant NAM Billy O'Reilly The event will have an hour long panel discussion featuring industry experts from a variety of sectors, We're delighted to introduce these LGBTQ+ superstars in the space: 🌟Kathy Caton MBE - Founder of Brighton Gin 🌟Krishnan Doyle - Managing Director of COREcruitment Ltd 🌟Sam Feller - Founder of Popcorn Shed 🌟Amie Burke - Inclusive Programs Manager at IGD (Institute of Grocery Distribution) 🌟Mark Dyer - Founder of The Gay Farmer Link to tickets are in the comments below. If you can't make it in person, please email sales@pipandnut.com for a Zoom link which we'll share closer to the time. See you there!

Next week JEDI MATTERS Collective is hosting the first of it's kind (that I'm aware of!) LGBTQ+ FMCG meet up at the Lucky Saint | B Corp™ Pub 🏳️🌈 . It's an open invite to anyone within the SME FMCG community to attend, especially those within the LGBTQ+ community. A panel discussion (hosted by Pip & Nut | B Corp very own Billy O'Reilly) will open the evening up. The panel will share their own lived experiences and perspective of what it's like to work in this industry. After which there's a chance for the conversation to continue over a pint or two for those in the room. Why is this important? Creating spaces for different communities to connect at work is key to enabling our workplaces to be more inclusive, having said that within SME's it's sometimes hard to foster these connections purely by the fact our teams are small. It's for this reason why JEDI MATTERS Collective exists. To join forces to build these connections across our industry to foster greater diversity in our sector. Spaces are limited and the link to event is below. Come & join the conversation.

Really excited for our next JEDI MATTERS Collective event 🤩 Huge kudos and thanks to Founders Pip & Nut | B Corp who are leading the way on this one with Billy O'Reilly at the helm 🙏🏾 And thanks to Founders Lucky Saint | B Corp™ for hosting 🙏🏼 This event will be a celebration of LGBTQ+ voices in the FMCG community. The panel discussion will focus on personal experiences and explore topics such as allyship, inclusion and the challenges that come with creating inclusive spaces 🎙️ Wednesday 25th September 4-8pm at the Lucky Saint | B Corp™ pub 👍🏿 See below for ticket details ⬇️

Today we hosted our 2nd #IWD event with the brilliant Caroline Storey, PCC running a workshop for our teams on ‘Unhooking from praise & criticism: How to take feedback seriously, not personally’ Caroline kicked off the workshop by giving us one key mindset shift: ‘Feedback is NOT a fact, truth or judgement about you. It’s data, not a diagnosis.’ 💥 Our relationship with #Feedback is an interesting and complex one. See the word cloud below for how people responded to the request to summarise their relationship with feedback in one word, from uncomfortable, defensive and apprehensive to positive, wanted and reflective 🤔 As Caroline Storey, PCC summarised, “How do we avoid feedback feeling like an MRI of the soul?” ⚡️ The workshop was anchored around 3 core feedback principles ⚓️ 1. All substantive work brings praise AND criticism, especially if it’s work being done by a woman. 2. All feedback is subjective, and is highly situational and context driven. 3. Feedback gives you emotionally neutral information and useful data about the person/organisation giving the feedback. Our 50+ attendees then went through a process to try to reframe our relationship with all types of feedback, using a simple framework based on the work of Tara Sophia Mohr’s Playing Big: Recall Reframe Relevance Revise Reflect Thankyou Caroline Storey, PCC for a truly reflective and practical workshop with lots of personal journaling 🙏🏿🙏🏾🙏🏼 Looking forward to our next JEDI MATTERS Collective event in May 😃 Image Description: A word cloud of responses to the anonymous question: In one word, what’s your relationship with feedback like? #IWD2024 #InternationalWomensDay #InternationalWomensDay2024 #Coach #Coaches

Today the JEDI MATTERS Collective hosted a panel with four inspiring female leaders Anuradha Chugh, Charlotte Di Cello, Lou Pollitt & Melissa Hedley Lewis around the topic of reaching your potential in your career. We asked them about what moments in their careers were particularly formative, who's helped them along the way, how can employers support women and what advice they would give women who are earlier in their career journeys. Here’s a few of the key takeaways from the session: 🗣 “Give the gift of feedback to each other” - Feedback shaped all these women’s careers, helped them learn and grow at different stages of their journeys. For those on the receiving end being open to learn and unlearn from this feedback is key or, as Anuradha Chugh, said “learn to learn”. 🦇 “Take the Batman suit off” - don’t try to be everything to everyone and expect to juggle it all without dropping a single ball. Progress not perfection is the goal from Charlotte Di Cello. 🌟 Small actions can have a big impact - day to day behaviours like sharing a word of encouragement when someone makes a great contribution to a discussion, having an honest conversation about someones career development or nudging someone forwards for a stretching project can be all that you need to do to boost confidence and set someone in the right direction. Lou Pollitt had first hand experience of the benefits of this in her career. 👐 Be bold, be brave and be vulnerable - adding vulnerability into these leadership traits was key to Melissa Hedley Lewis leadership journey. By being vulnerable you will be more authentic and by being more authentic we free ourselves from the pressure of being someone we’re not.  🚺 Don’t get caught up in stereotypes. It’s important not to create pathways for women which assumes we are all the same and where there are more female traits - we need to make sure we are more alert to them, as men and women.  📑 Employers must be intentional in their behavior to support women at work and help fix some of the structural issues that are preventing gender equality. Policies that support women with childcare responsibilities, recruitment frameworks that ensure a balance of genders are seen at all stages of the process and encouraging men to take shared parental leave by having policies that support them to do so are just some of the ways employers can help. As one of the panelists said, lets take what we celebrate on IWD into our every day. #iwd2024 Image Description: A powerpoint slide with the title 'International Women's Day 2024: Reaching your potential'. The slide has a headshot of each of the speakers and their names, job titles, organisation and pronouns.

Did you know that on average in SME’s just 55% of leadership teams include at least one women, and whilst this is higher with B Corps at 84% - it’s still not at parity with men🤔. This is one of the reasons why we wanted to form the JEDI MATTERS Collective. We want to see that number reach 100%. Why? Because business, and society as a whole, performs better when there's a balance of genders, at all levels: 💷 Companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25% more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the bottom (McKinsey) 🚀 Companies with more than 30% female executives are more likely to outperform companies that don’t (according to research from academics from the Universities of Glasgow and Leicester). This IWD we're hosting two events for our Collective team members - the first a panel discussion from some inspiring female leaders and the second a workshop on ‘Unhooking from praise & criticism'(or how not to take feedback personally). We'll be sharing the highlights in our posts over the next few days. #iwd2024 Image Description: A poster with party streamers and people holding up their hands in the shape of a heart. The poster says 'Happy International Women's Day # InspireInclusion # IWD2024'.

Wondering how to make the most of your connections? We had the brilliant Suzy Stollery, ex People Director at Pukka Herbs & Founder of Beside Ltd, speak to the JEDI MATTERS Collective about mentoring & the power of connections. Here were our 5 key takeouts: 👂 “Listening to understand, rather than to speak” There’s a lot you can learn from being curious and actively listening to others in order to learn from them. ☕ Try to reframe the word “networking” as simply having a coffee Networking is about connecting with someone else and more often than not is an informal conversation over a coffee - it doesn’t need to be cooperate or feel forced. 🤝 Mentors don’t always have to be with someone more senior Mentors can be a peer, leader, or a line manager - in fact any interaction offers an opportunity to learn from someone. 😄 Most people want to help Be honest, proactive and clear about your ask and how someone can help you and you'll be surprised about how open people are to help you. 💡 Set yourself an achievable goal and make that move Challenge yourself if you don’t like networking to reach out to someone every month/quarter - you’d be amazed how easy it is and having a goal can help get the ball rolling! JEDI MATTERS Collective will be launching our Connections Programme in May - a unique cross business networking / mentoring programme. 

Great launch post from one of our 4 Founding Members Pip Murray and Pip & Nut | B Corp 🚀 A great reminder of what JEDI MATTERS Collective has planned post launch for 2024: 🧠 Delivering a programme of talks and workshops for our teams centred around the JEDI calendar - first up International Women's Day... 🤝 Launching the 'Connections Programme' a unique mentoring/networking programme that will offer cross business professional development opportunities to all 📖 Sharing resources - providing JEDI toolkits & resources for our teams to enhance our collective knowledge. Thanks Pip 💜