Report on Professional Women's Dinner on 20 August 2015
11 Sep 2015
The Professional Women’s Dinner on 20 August 2015 was another very successful event for the Canterbury Women’s Legal Association (CWLA). Aside from being an excellent networking opportunity, it was a thought provoking evening for all attendees.
Over 80 women attended the event at the convivial Addington Coffee Co-op, Lincoln Road. The annual dinner is a fundraiser for the CWLA University Student Scholarship.
This year, the event was sponsored by Oxford Women’s Health, and before the dinner got underway, we were treated to a very entertaining welcome by Janene Brown, obstetrician and gynaecologist, and senior consultant at Oxford Women’s Health.
The keynote speaker for the evening was Lucy Hone, and there was a message for everyone in her inspiring speech. At the beginning of her talk, Lucy mentioned that she was one week from completing her PhD through AUT University’s Human Potential Centre. Her PhD focusses on ways to effectively apply the findings of wellbeing science and resilience research to promote mass market wellbeing in real world contexts.
Lucy referred to the stress and strain facing professional women, and particularly professional women in a legal career. She emphasised the importance of growing our mental health and treating our mental health as a piggy bank. From time to time we need to top it up. We all need to be ready for those times of extreme stress when we will make large withdrawals from the piggybank.
This lead to a discussion about the meaning of “resilience”. Lucy mentioned that we are not born resilient but it is strength that we need to develop and grow. Lucy studied resilience on Martin Seligman’s world famous Masters of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) programme at the University of Pennsylvania (the international home of wellbeing science). Lucy completed her Master’s not long before the first of the Canterbury earthquakes. In subsequent years, she has used her studies teaching people to be more resilient, and assisting different organisations with implementing resilience strategies as well as helping the well-being of staff. She also referred to her work with Christchurch Schools and the fact that Education Review Office is looking at the teaching of well-being in schools.
A poignant moment in her speech was when she referred to the 2014 death of her 12 year old daughter Abi in a tragic car accident on Queen’s Birthday weekend. Lucy stated that she has had to draw on all her strategies and theories to get her through the last 15 months. Key messages that she reinforced were
- Accept the good
- Approach every decision by asking “will this help or harm me?”
- Don’t get stuck in any one emotion.
Lucy also emphasised the importance of getting exercise every day. It can be as little as 20 minutes, and a walk outside of the office to get your coffee counts. Its even better if your regular coffee establishment is at least 8 minutes away!
Finally, Lucy stressed that we all need to plug away at feeling good and functioning well. It really is an ongoing commitment to looking after ourselves and keeping the mental health piggy bank topped up.
A big thank you to Emily Whiteside and Roz Burnside who were the two committee members responsible for organising this excellent evening.
The next event on the CWLA calendar is the Professional Women’s Conference on Friday 9 October 2015. The CWLA University Student Scholarship (which is awarded to the top female law student at Canterbury University each year) will be presented at our final event of the year – the CWLA Annual Christmas Lunch.
Vivienne Wilson
Like this? Why not share it with your friends!
Tags: Women's Dinner
There are no comments - be the first! | Permalink
