It doesn’t always go to plan

Earlier this year, Jess Ducey, Amber Craig, and I sat down and talked through what WWGSD would look like in 2018. We had one regional team well into the planning stages, a concept for another regional event, and a new shiny idea to help introduce more attendees and potential sponsors to what WWGSD is all about.

We felt pretty good. We had a plan, with vague dates, for three events in 2018 and one in early 2019.

And then.

One of the regional teams was having a really tough time finding a venue with accommodation that met our guidelines for financial accessibility. Another regional team found it difficult to find a venue, full stop. Same with our shiny new idea: the venue we loved was proving to be very popular and couldn’t find a date where we could use their full facility.

Jess bought a flat while juggling too many contracts, Amber had to help her parents sort and move house while juggling the rest of life, and Tash relocated her business while juggling a toddler.

All of a sudden it’s June, and that great plan we started the year with has barely moved.

In the interest of being transparent, we thought it important to let you know that WWGSD has been on our minds all year long. The three of us haven’t stopped discussing, planning, and building on the vision. But we’ve also each adjusted our priorities to what needed to be done first, and much as we all wholeheartedly believe WWGSD needs happen, it also needs to happen with our full focus and not to the detriment of, well, our families, friends, and personal wellbeing.

Which brings us to now: we have some dates!

Saturday 18 August: Wellington one day (our new shiny thing)

5–7 October: Wellington weekend retreat

Saturday 3 November: Dunedin one day

with a couple more events in the north in the works.

Launching one day events is an exciting development: our goal is to introduce more people to WWGSD and make it even more accessible. These events will feed into the weekend long retreats, making them a little less intimidating and (we hope) helping convince ever more women that they, too, get shit done.

We will also be opening up registrations further out from events, to make for easier life planning. Everything else we stand for stays the same: inclusive, diverse, welcoming events full of challenging, interesting discussions driven by the attendees.

Follow us on Facebook and sign up for our newsletter to be the first to know about the next iterations of WWGSD — we’d love to have you along.