First Women:Live! – Goes Live!
On September 22nd at 6.30pm we took the plunge.
Myself and Deborah (my editorial director and ‘write’-hand woman) had been talking about how to keep the energy of the 100 First Women Portraits exhibition moving in the face of Covid-19 lockdown restrictions and having to close the Brighton show in mid-flow.
With the advent of Zoom and the creative use of video-conferencing to easily host online events, we struck upon the idea of an online Q&A session: we would invite two of the First Women to join a live Zoom audience and answer questions posed by them and our social media followers.
But who to invite to the inaugural FW:L!? We decided on Colonel Lucy Giles and Jill Pay to step up to the plate for the experimental launch session. These firsts were not only two of our biggest project supporters and First Women Ambassadors but we knew were also not afraid to take some probing questions off the cuff!
I was a little nervous; this was a new medium for me and for 7 months I had had no real creative collaborative work to throw myself into and I felt a bit out of practice! But I had nothing to worry about; Deborah was there to keep an eye on technology, we had about 50 eager sign ups (from across the UK and Europe), some some great questions from our SM followers and two enthusiastic Firsts. And thankfully, the first session was brilliant fun and a real success.
Jill and Lucy did us proud with compelling and inspiring content and an enjoyable hour was had by all.
It was really uplifting to be part of creating a community and a coming together in these times of social distancing. It also allowed us access to the minds and spirits of inspiring women who cannot always make it to in-person events but for whom it is no trouble to hop on line for 60 minutes and offer their insights and stories to an audience.
First Women:Live! will run every 6 weeks. I cannot wait until the next one – see below!
First Women:Live! – Next session, November 10th, 2020. 18.30-19.30 UK time.
For our next FW:L! we welcome First Woman Fight Director, Alison de Burgh, and Dany Cotton, First Woman Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade and to receive the Queen’s Fire Service medal.
To register for this FREE EVENT, send an email with your name and home country/county to anita@1stwomenuk.co.uk. You will then be emailed the event details and the Zoom link. If you would like to send us questions for these women, send them to the same address or post them on our social media pages.
