It's Been One Week Since The Gorgeously Green Gathering

Photo courtesy of All Natural Aspirations.

L-R: Caroline (Weleda), Olga (The Rose Tree), Rachael (Myroo), Rachel (All Natural Aspirations), Sarah (Sugarpuffish), Jen (Jen's Green Skincare), Elijah (Bodhi & Birch), Kim (Botanical Brands)

This post is more of a reflective one, as I'm sure there are plenty of blog posts around (I'll link them below) which have a thorough run down of the day itself so I hope you don't mind as I ramble a bit.

So about a year ago now, Sarah, Rachel and I planned a little get together with some Green Beauties in Reading to spend the day just chilling with each other. From that, we had a couple of brands ask us if we'd like them to come and talk to us as a group and while that wouldn't have worked for a social, it did start the ball rolling into what eventually became Gorgeously Green Gathering.

We put some feelers out to brands in the beginning of the year and to be honest, the response was totally overwhelming. We had all sorts of brands wanting to be involved, making the decision on who to speak very tough indeed! 

I think it was at this stage that we hijacked Amber's #GreenChat on twitter and started asking what people wanted (make-up!) and that helped us when putting the day together.

During the first quarter of the year we set a date, found a venue, finalised the brands and started promoting ready for tickets going on sale in June. We had daily emails and weekly Skype calls all during this time. 

Planning the event was a novel experience - some days I'd be so happy with everything and excited, that the event couldn't happen fast enough. Other days were hellish and I wanted to scream with frustration.

Sometimes things would slow down and we'd go for days without hearing from anyone; then, always on a Thursday (weird), our inbox would go crazy and we'd be racing to respond, to speak to each other, to double check plans. 

Fast forward to Sunday 13th September and although I had something come up which took me away for the morning, I walked into the conference room and could not have been prouder of all the hard work Sarah, Rach and I put in to make that day happen. 

Our wonderful sponsors, Kim from Botanical Brands and Olga of The Rose Tree, along with our very special speakers Rachael of MyRoo, Elijah of Bodhi & Birch, and Caroline from Weleda, really  made the day. Their passion was infectious and it has been a pleasure to get to know them more personally after spending so many hours talking to them. Thank you for your time and for all your contributions. 

And to the people who came to the event - thank you! 

We would not have been able to do it without you, so I'll say it again - Thank You.

Reading your tweets, blog posts and messages about the day has been so heart warming. I wish I could have spent more time with each of you but I hope there will be opportunities in the future!

Extra special thanks to Susie Farigrieve for organising some Essential goodies for the gift bags and raffle, The Primal Pantry for their delicious Paleo bars and to ConsiderIt Chocolate for the phenomenal chocolate bars. Mine didn't last the evening and I had to share with hubby, but you have a repeat customer from me!

To Sarah and Rach - we made it. We put on something unique, something that brought people together and got them talking. I have some wonderful memories that will stay with me forever, the words "thank you" aren't enough.

I wrap up with one last thing. 

We held a raffle with prizes from all our speakers at the end of the day. We raised over £160 for our nominated charity Facing The World.

I think that's pretty marvellous, don't you?

Blog posts about the day can be found:

All Natural Aspirations, Amber's Beauty Talk, Just Malin, Katie Vibes, Sugarpuffish, What I Love Today