Maxine's April Round-up: Go Karting, Strong In Your Skin and Charity Bag Drops!

We really value spending time together as a team, as our wonderful AC colleagues are a huge part of what makes our brand so special. So for AC’s bi-annual team building event, we put on our helmets and donned our racing gear to try our hand at go karting! This was great fun and we absolutely saw the competitive side to the team, myself included! Afterall, we’re always striving to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be! Well done to James, Nadine, Rich, Matt, David and Rachel for being our champions and clocking up an impressive 184 laps!

Charity Bag Packing for Birmingham Children's Hospital

AC have been busy this month packing charity bags for Birmingham's Children’s Hospital. As a business we have a duty to support local businesses that support and empower the community. So we were delighted to do our second bag drop to the hospital. Last October we dropped off 400 bags filled with everyday essentials so we were so really thrilled to be dropping off another 400!

These bags get handed out as part of the ‘Packs for Parents’ scheme ensuring that parents are provided with the basics needed for when they are staying overnight with their child. We’ve been proud supporters of the hard working team at the hospital for a number of years, and we understand the worry that you have when your little ones are unwell. We hope our little care packages provide parents with a little bit of comfort when they’re having a difficult time. The team all lent a hand making sure that each tote bag was packed full with some essentials - it was an impressive production line in the corner of the office! I’m so proud of the team coming together to make this happen! We will be furthering our partnership next month as the AC team will be running the Birmingham half marathon to raise money for the trust!

AC’s Viral TikTok

It has been so exciting to see the ‘Strong In Your Skin’ campaign with Emma Willis come together. We achieved not one.. Not two.. but four viral TikTok videos on the campaign! This is such an accomplishment! I am so pleased to see all the comments on our social media channels. We especially love reading through all the wonderful stories that people have shared about their experiences of feeling Strong In Your Skin.  A truly fantastic way to inspire others.  We have also had some of the  AC team share what makes them feel strong in their skin and I must admit this video had all of us over at AC feeling rather emotional. Thank you to everyone who has shared their story with us so far, we look forward to reading, and sharing, many more.

Happy Easter!

Over the sunny Easter weekend, I had the pleasure of doing a 60 mile bike ride with Darcy and Richard. We’ve been preparing for the AJ Bell Great Birmingham Run coming next month, so it was great to jump on my bike and keep challenging myself. Absolutely pushed my limits but my word did I feel good after!

Panel Talks

We’ve learnt such a lot in the nearly 6 years we’ve been in business, and Darcy and I both find it incredibly rewarding to share some of our experiences. Darcy was on a panel talk for the “Retail in Recession” event, and we both gave a talk for Handelsbanken this month. When Darcy and I were invited to talk on a ladies’ business group panel headed by Jo Bishop of Handelsbanken Wolverhampton, we absolutely jumped at the chance! We love supporting women but also spoke in support of Jo who has been alongside us on our AC journey since day one. She even recalls coming to lunch at our house years ago and seeing the pot boiling in the kitchen, ready to extract the collagen! So to be giving a talk with Jo, who has helped me tremendously, sharing the knowledge that I’ve gathered on my business journey, was a real full circle moment for me, and to be alongside Darcy also was an incredible feeling.

Events

Darcy and I attended the CEW demonstration evening, having previously won CEW awards it was great to be back. It’s always a wonderful event and something that we look forward to every year as we’re able to see all the new beauty, skin and hair products out this year. It was a real treat! We had also attended the Great British Entrepreneur awards dinner which was a fabulous night! I was fortunate enough to have won the ‘Midlands Health and Wellbeing Entrepreneur of the Year’ award back in 2021!  So, it was really great to be invited back to sit down and meet other like minded entrepreneurs in the industry.

Well that is it for this month, I look forward to another month of all things AC. May, I’m ready for you. Bring it on!