I am fortunate to have visited lots of organisations around Ireland that help children with different abilities. When we can, we always try to give back a little by donating money to help them. Charities invite me to their AGMs and ask us to run a workshop for the parents in their organisation.
I have three favourite parts in my work:
- Meeting the charities/organisation and staff
- Running workshops
- Being able to have David with me at these workshops.
So, when Covid hit, all that stopped, I assumed we would be back doing workshops in person after a few weeks, but as time moved on, this was anything but the reality of what was ahead of us.
During the summer of 2020, we had a conversation about moving everything online (my least favourite part of my work, as I find it slightly impossible), and it might be my age, but I was not keen. As the months moved on then we didn’t have much choice as everything ground to a halt.
I’m going to let you into a secret here about Allan, he doesn’t drink, but after a week trying to train me to work online… well. Let’s just say we both survived!
The first step to our online move was to create the online workshop videos. We hired a video editor to shoot 7-videos and put them up on our website. Who knew this would be so difficult and the hundreds of takes we had to shoot? Now I realise why actors get paid so much, it’s not easy! Of course, David loved this part as it was all to do with recall as his memory is fantastic. He was definitely the best one of us and the most photogenetic.
We then held our first zoom Special Needs Trust Planning Webinar on 29th of October 2020. I had no idea whether it would be any good, but we got very positive feedback from parents, and private consultation bookings started to flow in again.
I must admit I never thought our webinars would be so popular. Many parents who had put this on the back burner now finally had time. They could view our webinar from the comfort of their own home, so that was easier for the parents, which I was happy about.
Now, as we come up to our 1-year anniversary, I want to thank all the parents who attended our webinars. We had over a thousand parents attend in less than 12-months, and I can’t believe I am going to say this, but I think Financial Wellbeing will be staying online from now on.
Sincerely thank you,
Dolores