WACLWisdom Launch Event

Over three hours on Wednesday 8th Feb, in the amazing space at McCann World HQ in Bishopsgate, around 100 WACL members listened to a terrific 10-member line up share a deeply personal and challenging story from their life. The format comprised three questions set by Rudi Symons: What challenged me? How did I overcome it? What’s the gift this situation brought me?

“What a triumph! What an amazing evening! I’ve been wanting to do something that connects members across generations, gets them to share their stories and results in more trust and respect for each other ever since my VP year. Never did I imagine that we’d do it on such an incredible scale, uncover such moving and inspirational stories, or attract so many members. The buzz in the room was palpable and everyone I spoke to had had a memorable evening and took several brilliant bits of advice to heart. What a wonderful way to kick off our 100th celebrations”. (Kate Waters)

Our 2021/22 President could not have put it better at 7.30am the day after this free, members-only launch event for WACL Wisdom, which also marked the start of our 2023 centenary celebrations. (Some of you may recall its successful pilot at the 2022 AGM with Collette Philip and Justine Roberts).

WACL Wisdom is a brilliant execution of an idea that came out of no less than four different WACL 100 work streams. Its objective was: ‘to better connect our members across the generations by drawing on the immense wisdom, and life experience within our incredible network to support and inspire each other, highlighting the varied and diverse lived experiences and bringing to the fore important conversations and insights’. (23rd Nov 2021)

It is safe to say our wonderful members – both speakers and audience members – knocked it out the ball park on February 8th. The honesty, bravery, integrity and fortitude that we witnessed from the speakers was formidable: delivered in a mix of funny, self-aware, surprising and heart breaking styles. The empathy, love, connectivity and support they got back from the audience was electric. Everyone left feeling (awe) inspired and with a ‘gift’ to hold dear. This observation probably sums up the reaction: “The Club has felt at sea for a long time now and this was a huge lighthouse in the storm to bring us all home!”

Or as President Rania put it: “A number of people said to me that this was their favourite WACL event and I feel absolutely the same. My heart is filled with joy to be part of this amazing club!”

Check out Jan Gooding’s wonderful ‘Courage and Candour’ write up and Lori Meakin’s evocative photo montage of the event onthe external pages of our website.

Net net, if you weren’t there, girl, did you miss out! Never fear, however, we will be organising our second WACL Wisdom event (because this is just the start) in May, date TBD. Keep an eye out for details in Rania’s newsletters. We just need to recover from this one first!

With love from the WACL WISDOM team

Sarah Bauman, Merry Baskin and the formidable Rudi Symons

About the author

Kate Waters
Kate Waters

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