3 conferences in 1 week

Conferences, it appears, are like buses; they all arrive at once!

On Wednesday morning, my colleague Gwenllian Owen and I set off for Swansea to attend the Ireland/Wales healthy aging Showcase; the first of three conferences I was to attend this week. The topic pertains to us all, as 30% of the population of Wales will be over 60 by 2026. Ensuring we have the knowledge and resources in place to support an older population to age in a healthy way is so important.

We presented on MySparc; an app currently under development to enhance business support by bringing together new businesses, business advisors, potential investors and mentors, and students looking for experience.? It will modernise and streamline business support, and the healthy aging element relates to the Angels who’ll be able to use their wealth of knowledge and experience to brows new businesses in a sector of their choosing, offering support and even funding to get them started.

Here we are doing ‘piano hands’ - part of a warmup exercise to wake the audience up (but it’s secretly a nerve-calming technique for myself! It really helped to have a confident presenter like Gwenllian by my side, too.).? We made new connections with the Irish delegation, including AgriTech via Kyle Savage and it was great to use the old anecdote that my uncle is in Gavin and Stacey, which really impressed Paddy Meade .?(He is, he plays Dick Powell, and it’s my claim to fame.)

Thanks to Zoe Coombes , Peredur, Hafwen, Harrison, and the team for an excellent conference, a fabulous musical interlude, great dinner company, and some tense rounds of pool!

The next morning, we headed over to Parc y Scarlets for the Uwch Gynhadledd Arfor. We’ve 4 Arfor projects; MySparc, our Gwaith a Iaith Academy that provides 6 months of work and Welsh lessons, as well as Welsh spaces including our Welsh language Discord channel, Running the Wales in London network, and Esteddfod; the first Welsh language esports competition.? All funded by the ARFOR Challenge Fund which has been funded by the Welsh Government.

The conference was hosted by Welsh TV presenter, Angharad Mair. We heard from those who’ve benefited from the fund, and what struck me was the atmosphere of the conference; every single speaker really connected with the audience, something which is rare to see.?

I’m not the best networker, but found it really easy to do at a conference where everyone was working towards similar goals; we worked in groups to map out how the Welsh language supports our work, and how our work supports the Welsh language.

Finally, we all made a pledge of how we’d support the language; I’ll be opening and sining off all e-mails in Welsh.? Daniel Jones from Bragdy Cybi will be calling ‘Last Orders’ in Welsh and is open to suggestions of what could be said – Archeb Olaf doesn’t have quite the same ring! ?

It was fantastic also to bump into James from Llanelli-based video production company, Stori Cymru, as James Owen is currently supporting one of our Skills Academy members! We’ve only spoken over the phone so it was great to meet him in person.

Congratulations to Zoe Pritchard , Sara Davies , and all the team for arranging the event, the ARFOR programme plays a large part in supporting the Welsh language in the workplace, and it’s one M-SParc is proud to be a part of.

To finish the week, I attended the “Nurturing a bilingual workforce”, again related to an Arfor project, looking at the toolkit that’s been developed via Bangor University’s Social Studies team. I used to work with some of the individuals who put together and attended the event when I was developing Welsh Language measuring tools, so it felt like a real meeting of two worlds to be there with an M-SParc hat on!

It was a privilege to watch my colleague Ffion Davies represent young people in industry, as she took part in her first ever panel!? I then felt very old as I represented the employers in a similar panel, but took the opportunity to connect with those in the rooms and discuss how we are all working towards the same goal – to ensure those who speak Welsh feel there’s no secret barrier or exam to prove they are Welsh speakers, and to go for it with careers that ask for you to be a Welsh speaker.

I really enjoyed the event, and again a huge congratulations to Cynnog, Rhian, Elen and the whole team for not only the toolkit, but also the energising conference.

The key take-away for me from the three days was cheesy but true – “collaboration is key”! There are so many of us across Wales working to similar goals, and I’m starting to think that the “people just work in silos” that I keep hearing is a vicious rumour, because I’m so lucky to meet people every day who are excited to work together and actively seeking out collaboration. Team work makes the dream work!