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It’s a day in the home office with Margot Tomkinson-Smith, communications manager for Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)

My Day

7.00am: For me, my wake up alarm is my two-year-old daughter sitting beside me with her Jelly Cat bunny. I love having breakfast as a family, before we all go our separate ways – office, nursery, kitchen.

8.30am: As soon as the house is quiet, I check my emails and catch up on the daily news. Working flexi-time and from home means that communication between me and the team is essential. We either Skype or meet at the office in Theale, the LEP’s headquarters.

10.00am: The power behind the LEP is the “collaborative momentum” of those who get involved to make a difference and drive our local economy to new levels. This means we have a large number of stakeholders; these include SMEs, local authorities, MPs, educational institutions, third-sector and business representative organisations.  We communicate in many ways; traditional PR, social media, e-marketing and events. I spend a lot of my day speaking to our LEP Forum, a group of volunteers from a range of industries, and interested parties, to help spread our positive message.

1.00pm: Lunch is on the go or at my desk so I can take some time to catch up on emails.

2.00pm: Our busiest periods are when we organise events, whether they are being hosted at the House of Commons or local workshops for SME local authority procurement. As a team we spend weeks and months planning and organising, from finding venues in Berkshire, to brainstorming creative ideas and working on the presentation content.

4.00pm: This is the time when I catch up on calls and emails from the media and stakeholders. We issue a bi-monthly e-newsletter to our CRM database updating them of our achievements, what are current aims are and what our focus is.

5.00pm: Time to shut down and pick my daughter up from nursery. The rest of the evening is spent in the garden or watching ‘Charlie & Lola’.

Margot Tomkinson-Smith is communications manager for Thames Valley Berkshire Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP)

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