Good news comes from difficult times

As we announce that our leadership programmes are fully-funded until August 2021, Bangor based Senior Programme Manager Gwenllian Owen shares how happy she is to be sharing some positive news, and what it means for future delegates.

The last few months have been hard. They’ve been stressful, full of negative news and feelings of despondency. We’ve all been concerned about family, friends and this situation we find ourselves in – safety has been paramount to us all.

Now, isn’t it great to be able to share some excellent news we’ve received recently! We have received confirmation from the European Social Fund via Welsh Government that the ION leadership programme will be available on a fully-funded basis for a limited period of time! This news has come at a time when businesses are starting up again and opening their doors in what is a very different world to what it was 3 months ago. Times where good leadership will be a priority in order to get things going, welcoming staff back from furlough and ensuring that they have everything in place as far as the safety of staff and customers is concerned.

I’ve been on pins, wanting to share this news with you all! As you can imagine, the news has been with us for a couple of weeks and it’s been very hard to keep it under wraps, especially when we are meeting with our delegates and talking about future delivery plans for our programmes whilst not being able to share the details about the new funding! Our Coffee and Catch Up sessions with the North Wales cohorts and the Open Doors sessions in the South have been great opportunities for us to meet with you all and it has been good to hear the success stories that are coming out of this situation, but on the other hand it has been distressing to listen to some of our delegates who are having a very difficult time at the moment. A lot of our delegates are in the Hospitality and Tourism sector which has been badly affected and we hope that we’ll be able to support you as much as possible.

They say that we have to take advantage of challenges that are put in front of us, and COVID-19 has been a real challenge but one that has brought opportunities too. We could have sat back and said, “let’s see what happens in September, see whether we can deliver our courses or not”; or as we did, we sat down as a Pan-Wales team and discussed, what can we do differently, what opportunities is COVID-19 giving us? We’ve been looking at the cohorts that were already planned for 2020/2021 and have been moving things around slightly to ensure that we can deliver our programmes safely for you.

When we went into Lockdown on the 23^rd March 2020, we had to react quickly as we had a number of active cohorts that needed to complete. It was at that point that a decision was made to carry on delivering to our current cohorts on an on-line basis. This worked well and was well-accepted by our delegates. So, we know that on-line delivery works well and that delegates are able to interact whilst learning on-line.  We have also had a good long look at the technology that is available to us and how we can make the best use of it when delivering to our cohorts.

It has also given us time to take a good look at our programmes and see where change might be required or a little refreshing is needed! It’s good to reflect on our work and think about what’s worked well, what’s not been so good and how we can improve on this (i.e. practicing what we preach!).  Having time to do this has been a bonus and one that we’ve made the most of!

This is why we’ve decided to continue to start delivering our programmes on an on-line basis in September with the aim to be back on a face-to-face basis as soon as the Government relaxes the social distancing measures and rules on group activities - this could be as early as December/January. Say, if a cohort starts in September we foresee that there’ll be a few sessions to attend on-line and then as soon as we possibly can, we’ll be holding our experiential events and our masterclasses on a face-to-face basis which will give you the opportunity to work even closer with your co-delegates.

So, what does this mean to you, our future delegates? Well, if you or members of your team have wanted to attend the ION leadership programme in the past, but for one reason or another haven’t been able to do so, this is your opportunity to sign-up to the programmes on a fully-funded basis (this funding is only available for a limited period of time and won’t last forever!). There are eligibility criteria that you must meet in order to sign-up, but have a look at our courses, get in touch and we can explain all of this to you.

As the whole ION team are working from home the easiest way to contact us is by dropping us an email (ionleadership@bangor.ac.uk or ionleadership@swansea.ac.uk) or if you want to complete an application, you can do so here. Once this is complete, we’ll get in touch with you to discuss further eligibility criteria and paperwork that will be needed! Easy!

Meanwhile, stay safe and we hope to be able to welcome you and your team members to some of our programmes over the next few months.