Elodie Gibby is an admin volunteer with local charity Accuro. Accuro support children, young people, and adults with a disability with Clubs and activities in West Essex including youth clubs, a holiday scheme and adult friendship scheme in Harlow. I am Elodie and I am an admin volunteer at the charity Accuro. I am 19 years old and having recently finished my journalism course at Harlow College, I wanted to document my volunteer experience, in the hopes of inspiring people who are thinking of volunteering. I started volunteering because I wanted to experience the working world before getting a full-time job and include volunteering on my CV. Accuro looked like a [...]

Jake Shepherd, a recently appointed Trustee of Parndon Mill, highlights the strengths of inter-generational decision making when it comes to charity governance and the quest for securing more impactful outcomes for all. Fewer than 3% of trustees are under 30. Despite charities enduring some of the most uncertain times in living memory, this desperate underrepresentation of young people may jeopardise the long-term future of our third sector. Thankfully, for both young people and the boards of trustees they’re seeking to serve, the Young Trustees Movement is working to double the number of trustees aged 30 and under on charity boards by 2024. As a secondary school and sixth-form teacher, charity trusteeship [...]

This month’s blog comes from Sammie Steele, Managing Director of Placemaking and Regeneration at Places for People, who is overseeing the Gilston Park Estate development.   I joined Places for People because I am passionate about creating new, vibrant places for people to live, work and enjoy. I believe in genuine placemaking and putting people at the centre of new developments, and am working with my team to create a sustainable and innovative new neighbourhood at the Gilston Park Estate, as part of the wider Harlow & Gilston Garden Town. Places for People is responsible for masterplanning the Gilston Park Estate development, which means that even if some of the land [...]

This month's blog comes from Ken Flockhart, the General Manager of Down Hall Hotel - one of England's most established country house hotels, located in Hatfield Heath. With the business community slowly coming out of lockdown, Down Hall is making preparations for a busy and exciting summer. I joined the hotel as the General Manager just before the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020 and am proud of how my team of local staff have worked tirelessly to maintain and improve the hotel, which is set within 110 acres of rolling parkland. During the lockdown, we have kept a focus on implementing an improvement programme to make the hotel an [...]

Julie Bailey, Inclusive Employment Consultant at ECL tells us how employing someone with learning disabilities has been proven to boost both workplace morale and productivity. Did you know that disabled people are more than twice as likely to be unemployed as non-disabled people? Through our company Essex Carers Limited (ECL), we are trying to challenge the prejudices around employing disabled people by matching employers with candidates and providing support to these candidates in their jobs. Employing someone with a disability and becoming a Disability Confident Employer has huge benefits. Our clients thrive on routine and repetitive tasks that other employees cannot sustain, or may find mundane. Our clients increase job loyalty [...]

Dave Burrows, Economic Development Advisor to the Innovation Core, tells us about Harlow’s exciting new resident, the UK’s largest Supercomputer - Cambridge-1. The Innovation Core is the central part of the UK Innovation Corridor, situated midway between London and Cambridge, encompassing Harlow, Broxbourne, East Herts, Epping, and Uttlesford districts. Medtech and Digital Health have been identified as a key investment opportunity for the Innovation Core within the broader Life Sciences offer of the UK Innovation Corridor, considering the regional intersection of Advanced Manufacturing, ICT, and Life Sciences. Taking advantage of all this opportunity, US chip and technology company, NVIDIA, have just announced that they will site their powerful new supercomputer in [...]

Our blog this month comes from Emma Robson at Stort Valley Spirits, a small artisan producer in Harlow. Emma has pulled together a great selection of businesses to help you shop local this Christmas. A brewery, coffee roasting company, a free-range turkey farm - these are just a few of the many artisan producers with a home in Harlow. When I moved to the area in 2017, I had no idea that so many local producers existed and neither had my husband, despite being a lifelong Harlow resident. Since then, we’ve made it our mission to discover as many as possible. Higher profile local producers include Mayfield Farm Bakery, responsible for [...]

Donna Tyrelli, Managing Director of ReGlow Ltd talks about the challenges we face on the road to carbon zero. Work-life balance is a hot topic in 2020, and an important consideration when starting my own business ReGlow Ltd, a specialist in zero carbon solutions, back in 2019. Moving from London, I wanted to live and locate my business somewhere that gave me this balance, somewhere with easy access to the city, good travel links, and, as an enthusiastic climber, a local indoor climbing wall and good links to outdoor climbing areas. I found the perfect home and business location in Harlow. ReGlow is growing quickly. Since the Paris Agreement was signed [...]

This month's blog is written by PC Bradley Hall, Community Safety Engagement Officer based in Harlow for Essex Police. As Harlow Community Safety Engagement Officer, I enjoy speaking with people across the community in Harlow, from residents to community groups, charities and businesses. My role is to find out what matters to them and work with them to ensure effective crime prevention. As a police force, we are proud to be Harlow Ambassadors and through joining Discover Harlow we are pleased to have already started helping other Ambassadors keep their businesses safe and prevent crime. We are really excited to be partnering with Harlow businesses to provide advice, including safeguarding training [...]

From the age of 10, I wanted to study Law. My inspiration derived from the sharply-dressed lawyers on the 80’s American TV series LA Law. During my GCSEs and selecting a college to attend, I realised my dream of becoming a lawyer was no longer the career path I wanted to pursue. I can recall flicking through different college prospectuses hoping to find an alternative. I recall not receiving any guidance or knowing anyone who could relate to what I was going through. I felt pressured as most of my friends had their career paths mapped out and sensed they felt I should know which area of interest my future lies, [...]