In Chamber Shoes - DACC Team

Never a Dull Moment

Shirley Taylor – Export Certification Coordinator

Monday morning starts with a walk from the city centre down to the Chamber of Commerce on the City Quay and that gives me a chance to think about the day ahead.

I step into the office and the phone starts ringing with an export query and that kicks off the day for me in exporting and accounts.

I will open all the sites I will work from that day (remembering all the passwords is no mean feat) and flit in and out of them as jobs need done.

One minute I am stamping export paperwork for Hong Kong in Tradecert, our online export documentation site, next I am logging supplier’s invoices or paying bills in Xero our accounts package or one of the team will ask me to query something in accounts or an exporter will pop in to collect paperwork.

The day seems to fly by and there is never a dull moment.

Networking at its best

Sarah Young – Events & Marketing Manager

Dan Cargill – Membership Engagement Executive

Today we're hosting one of our monthly DACC123 events with El Tajin in Montrose, a family run Mexican restaurant who use local produce and serve traditional Mexican wine and beer (and Tequila as Dan & Sarah found out!). We've an hour or so in the office first thing before we need to leave so it gives us a chance to check for last minute cancellations/bookings. Before long we're trolleying our stuff along to the car and off to Montrose. Set-up doesn't take long and before we know it attendees are arriving and enjoying the delicious food prepared by Martha and her team, including locally grown asparagus and locally reared goat (which was AMAZING!). The DACC123's give attendees a chance to network and discuss some 'hot topics'. Today they discussed the challenges that they face in business, how their organisation has adapted to reach new clients/markets and the work that the DYW team do in the local region. Before we know it's time to round up the event, say our goodbye's and head back to the office to unpack.

No time for a diet coke break

Angie Foreman – Coca-Cola 5by20 Programme Director

09:45 and I take a brisk walk, leaving DACC’s fab new City Quay offices heading to the Steeple Church to celebrate the achievements of a new initiative delivered by Amina Women’s Resource Centre.  It was great to see the impact of this Enterprise programme, which has benefited so many of their members.  I thoroughly enjoyed the Service Design Workshop, led by Dundee City Council, unfortunately I had to leave early missing the ‘Bath Bomb’ Workshop.   The remaining part of my day saw me take a trip over the bridge to Tayport to discuss the possibility of creating some recreational workshops for our 5by20 network. Then I had an early evening meeting with two or our 5by20 Associate Members to discuss the further development of the programme.  Anther productive day, now some planning before tomorrow’s ‘Managing my Business’ workshop!

Budgets & Birthdays

Lauren McGurk – Events & Marketing Intern

Last week I started working full-time and now split my time between working with the Chamber and Coca-Cola 5by20. Today was a Coca-Cola day and we had our ‘Managing my business Workshop’. I love these work-shops, it’s great to speak to the ladies on the programme about their business ideas. There were a lot of confused faces today as we went through working out budgets and finances however the ladies left more confident that they now knew where to at least make a start.  After work, it was birthday celebrations with the family with both my Dad and brothers’ birthdays this weekend. After a visit to Kingsway Farm for dinner, myself and my brother made a quick dash to Tesco to pick up something for my dad’s birthday tomorrow. He’s so lucky to have such organised children…Overall, today was a good day. Looking forward to our Insights day tomorrow with the whole team!

Looking on the Brightside

Alison Henderson – CEO

Friday sees us get together with the Developing Young Workforce Team to further explore our Insights profiles and team development with Karran Bonner from Brightside - each of our teams has a good mixture of skills. Today we are exploring tools to better work together as a team, and how to use the Insights colour energies to communicate internally and externally.

Having a good awareness of how other people like to be communicated with is really important - let's not all assume everyone is the same as we are: that's not exactly a recipe for success! 

Doing this type of creative, team building session in the new offices is great - we started with a walk outside to discuss aims and objectives for the morning, and finished off with a really fab lunch in the Members Lounge.

As I lead with Sunshine Yellow, followed by Fiery Red I can always use the perspective of my colleagues' Earth Green & Cool Blue energies to help me out. Everyone who knows me knows I could definitely do with dialling up some of that blue energy to sort out my desk!

A fab way to end the working week

Cooking, Cake and Candles

Donna Bell - Office Manager

It has been a full week with suppliers and contractors still drifting in and out of our new offices – it’s still a work in progress, but we are getting there. Moving to a new house and moving office within a few months of each other has been interesting and quite frankly exhausting and life is still hectic. This Saturday was my mum’s birthday and I invited the family around, so it was all systems go making sure the house was spic and span and the food delicious. It was a glorious day so mocktails* in the garden is where we started and like all good parties ended with cake.

*mum doesn’t drink, and I had to drive her home!”

Wet Start with a Sunny End

Simon Rolfe – Membership Recruitment Manager

It was a miserably wet start to Sunday as I drove over to Montrose Tennis Club for the weekly doubles training session. We’re now 3 weeks into the annual Tayside Tennis League midweek fixtures and whilst some of our teams are holding their own in their divisions, my team are struggling this year to compete against some tough opposition such as Scone, Darnhall and Forthill. It’s the taking part they say….

Straight after tennis it’s back in the car to drive down to Perth for a big family lunch at Pizza Express (other pizza restaurants are available!) – at least we seem to have driven through the bad weather and it’s a beautiful day in the city which makes the rest of the afternoon of retail therapy for the 3 females in my family, all the more enjoyable. I camp out in a local coffee shop Blend and read the papers before taking Lily, our cocker spaniel out for a much-deserved run in Northinch Park – she couldn’t wait to play ball and burn off some of her seemingly unlimited energy.

Eventually we’re all exhausted (and for different reasons!), so we jump back in the car and head home, accompanied by some glorious late sunshine on the road up to Dundee.