Menopause Awareness

#menopauseawareness #menopauseintheworkplace #menopausesupport ?:

Off the topic and away from the important decisions in the hands of Credit Unions at the Irish League of Credit Unions Annual General Meeting; but not irrelevant for many of the delegates travelling to the Gleneagles Killarney this weekend.?

Neither is it irrelevant for a vast majority of #CreditUnion Members and #Volunteers.??

Nor is it irrelevant to one of the candidates asking for your vote for Treasurer ILCU 2023-2025.

I want to alert delegates and their alternates to another common bond shared by so many of us, yet is largely kept silent:?Menopause.

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In recent days it was brought to my attention that some attendees at AGM 2022 in Belfast approached a league board director to ask, “who is that woman that keeps walking around”.?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

As it happens, that woman was me, Vanessa Foran, also a director of the ILCU, and that same candidate asking for your vote for Treasurer ILCU 2023-2025 as mentioned above.?On that occasion, AGM 2022, I was in fact hitting my third anniversary as a director on your league’s board.?

Easy to mistake me for an unknown delegate, or alternate, or exhibitor, or conference worker, as I don’t have the profile and exposure as many others on the ILCU Board outside the ILCU Boardroom.

I am a 55-year-old woman, who is into her second year of full #menopause.?

Take my word for it, that shit is real.? But if you don’t trust my word, here are some learning resources and awareness campaigns.

https://www.themenopausehub.ie/ https://www2.hse.ie/conditions/menopause/ https://www.aware.ie/webinars/lets-talk-about-menopause/ https://www.themenopausecharity.org/??https://www.imsociety.org/

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For the first nine months of 2022 I suffered from two extreme symptoms of the menopause, profuse sweating, and insomnia.

When I am not dancing my way through the insomnia, I am reading and writing.?Or working, mostly for your board.?

As for the relentless sweating - I generally attempted to stroll my way out of the surges. ?To remain seated and still, only results in embarrassing sweat patches, damp seating, and stained clothing.??On two occasions during these nine months, I had to get medical intervention for dehydration.?Eventually I surrendered and went onto Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) last September.?

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I am not seeking your empathy or your sympathy, just your tolerance and some degree of awareness for those of us amongst you in Killarney this weekend; or in your workplace and within your families, in your #CreditUnion and your communities, that just sometimes women in the same relationship stage with mother nature as me, are not always as comfortable as we seem when we endeavour to reach some of your standards of decorum, and or attempt to meet your expected behaviour minimums.

Try sitting in a three-piece suit while you are being boiled in your own sweat sometime lads.

So, to manage this risk, and avoid disrupting or offending any delegates, I will be wearing looser and less tailored clothing, most likely in flats, so if you do see me walking around, please do stop to talk to me and ask me why.?

I can’t promise you all your answers, but I am more than willing to share my own experience if it helps #menopauseawareness.?

No matter what happens this weekend, or what was said at the previous AGM, there is a professional courtesy I am entitled to as a professional and regulated practitioner, and chartered accountant, so please don't assume that my ability to work or perform or maintain the professional standards I have built a career and reputation on are suffering a climacteric event of their own. Especially when the very opposite is in fact the case. I have never been more productive or prolific.

I can promise every Credit Union affiliated with the ILCU cooperative that the Governance standards you have democratically decided for your board are not dumbed down for my benefit.

Just don't call me Madam.

Yours in cooperation

Vanessa Foran

FCCA PIP DipCorpGov PIB APA Cpip and a candidate for Treasurer ILCU 2023-2025?????

Menopause Experts Group Limited Menopause at Work Menopause Group Menopause Knowledge in the Community MenopauseChicks.com