About Me

My photo
This is the one question I hate answering, I mean I never know what to say, it always sounds boring. Ok here goes! I'm a mum of two boys and Married to a wonderful supportive man. I'm originally from South Wales (UK) but moved to the North East in 2002. I've done various jobs including a Receptionist, Secretary, Project Support Officer and now I work Part Time as a Team Leader in the NHS and Part Time building my Virtual Business.

Sunday, 14 September 2008

How I got here....my background

Education

1991 – 1996 Ysgol Gyfun Cwm Rhymni

GCSE’s Maths, English, Welsh


1996 – 1998 Ystrad Mynach College

Advanced GNVQ in Business


2003 – 2004 University of Sunderland

Post Grad Certificate in Health Information Management

Training

· Prince2 Project Management Overview
· Prince2 Practitioner
· European Computer Driving Licence (ECDL)
· New to supervisory management
· Access for advanced users
· Excel for advanced users
· Time management
· Introduction to customer care
· Equality and diversity

Experience


1998 – 2000 D.T.D Damproofer Ltd – South Wales

Sales invoice clerk/Secretary

Full time position with a small firm. Duties include processing sales and purchase invoices, typing detailed reports, answering the telephone, taking and relaying messages. Photocopying, typing, allocating tasks to the company damproofers, writing out job sheets and chemical data sheets and placing the information onto the health and safety records.

My day-to-day duties also included booking appointments, processing incoming and outgoing payment, issuing guarantees and tax return forms.



2000 – 2002 Charter Housing Association – South Wales

Lettings Administrator/Void property inspector

Full time position. Duties included asses housing application forms, see people in reception, liaise with external agencies to give detailed housing advice and information both face to face and over the telephone.

Inspect vacant properties within target times, order routine works prior to re-letting of properties, control keys to vacant properties, input data and keep records up-to date, issue decoration vouchers according to policy. Ensure all properties are let to incoming tenants at the standard consistent with the Association’s policies.

Graphic design was also an integral part of my job. I produced marketing material for difficult to let properties, leaflets and questionnaires for the lettings team.


2002 –2004 Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust

LIS Training co-ordinator / Programme Administrator


Full time position within the IT department. Day-to-day duties included the co-ordination of the training programme and the Management of 4 trainers and one administrative assistant. Ensuring all relevant members of staff were placed onto training courses with accordance to the hospitals targets.

Sending out Training needs analysis to members of staff to identify any training needs.

Ensuring all records were kept up to date for statistical purposes.

Other day-to-day duties included setting up accounts for the use of the Internet Café, and training staff to log on and off the system correctly.

I was also the departments Programme Administrator. My main duties were to support the Programme Manager with the day to day management of on-going and up-coming Programmes. This involved preparing meetings, the setting up of Operational Standards and Procedures and monitoring the departments expenditure budget.



2004 – 2007 Sunderland Teaching Primary Care Trust

Lead administrator – Partnership Services


To provide a high level secretarial, operational and administrative support to the Deputy Programme Manager (Partnership Services) and Service Managers (Information Governance, Web Development, Technical Infrastructure and IT Training Service) within the Sunderland Health Community Partnership Services.

Main duties include, assisting the Deputy Programme Manager and Service Managers with the co-ordination and Management of the Strategy Groups and Boards. Research and collation of the NHS guidance, strategy and general information relevant to the scope of the services. Also the organization of service team meetings and events, organization of travel, attendance at events/conferences on behalf of the Partnerships services programme manager.

Other major tasks include, the controlled receipt, identification and issue of all project documentation for service utilisation (ePSO). The provision of information as to the status of all programme and project documentation for Partnership services, to number, record file and distribute programme and project documentation as appropriate for Partnership services.

Other day to day duties also include the supervision of other administration staff within Partnership services, delegating tasks as necessary.


2007 – to date South of Tyne and Wear Primary Care Trust

Admin Team Lead – Dental Service

To provide day to day leadership and overview of the activity within allocated areas in the team. To provide an effective customer focused administration and secretarial service in line with agreed standards. To maintain information systems and manual records where necessary, collecting data ensuring accuracy at all times.

Main duties include, the supervision of 9 administration staff, carrying out regular appraisals and personal development plans. Monitoring sickness absence and monitoring departmental expenditure.

Other duties include, occasional transcription of letters, development of information systems to record required statistics.

Tuesday, 9 September 2008

The benefits of using a Virtual Assistant

There are many reasons why using a VA is beneficial. Here are just a few of them:
  • They are orientated to meet your personal needs
  • They treat your business as if it was their own i.e. become very involved
  • Minimal training required
  • You only pay for their time and materials used: you are not liable to pay tax, national insurance costs and benefits, as you would when taking on a new employee
  • You have the peace of mind that any deadlines will be met
  • You will not have to make room in the office for an extra person, or relocate completely if it was necessary!

Would a Virtual Assistant Be Useful To Me?

If you can relate to any of the following scenarios, then it may be worth using a VA:

  • You generally need a personal assistant
  • Delegating work to existing staff will affect their ability to meet current deadlines
  • You need to 'free' some of your own time to concentrate on other areas of the business
  • Your current staff does not have the skills to complete the task(s) in question
  • You have limited funds to purchase equipment (e.g. PC's) to complete certain tasks
  • You want a business e-mail account but do not have a PC and/or on-line connection
  • You need a contact person for times when you are away
  • Your premises does not have enough space to accommodate another person

Biz4help.com

Monday, 8 September 2008

This is what inspired me

One day I was really bored (two kids under three and bored??? ha that's funny!). They were both aleep and I had some time to kill, so I started reading the news, for some strange reason there was nothing of interest in the news that day so I started going through the archives of the BBC website and stumbled accross a wonderful article in the Business section.

You can view the article in full by following the link provided (it's the header if you're still looking! ;o) ) but I'll quote some sentences to give you a little taster...

"VA"s work from home, offering services for businesses which might not have enough work to justify employing their own full-time administrative staff" Now this is good! I thought to myself, a lot of businesses are struggling at the moment with the ever increasing costs so i thought I could cut down their overheads and provide them with their very own assistant, but only when they need to. There's no ongoing weekly/annual salary to pay, no sick or maternity leave to pay, all they pay for is ME! well the work I do anyway. how good is that?

"You can work to your own timetable,"
"You don't have to be in at nine o'clock and leave at five. If it's a lovely day you can sit in the garden and do the work in the evening."
Now this is the bit I loved! childcare costs are enormous and with two children to pay for at a private nursery, having the flexibility to work from home, at weekends, during the evening would be ideal for us all. It would not just be of benefit to me though, my potential clients might prefer the flexibility of my hours, knowing that I'm available out of the "normal" office hours might be appealing.

"If a businessman can be out of the office doing something he actually wants during the day, knowing his VA will be there to talk to him in the evening if he wants, it will make a great deal of difference to everyone's lifestyle." Exactly my way of thinking!

I asked the same question!

Virtual Assistant? What on earth is that?

Whilst on maternity leave with my second son (who is now 1 by the way), I was desperately looking of ways to bring in some income but still be able to stay at home. I did a lot of reasearch and realised 99% of offers out there are scams. So that put a stop to that.

What next I though? Well I started to think about how I could utilise the skills I have and still stay at home with my boys like I so desperately wanted.

Once again I trawled the internet for some inspiration, or would that be a miracle?

I can accross the term "Virtual Assistant" I was slightly confused at first, but I then started to get exited about what it all meant.

It meant that I could do what I do best, from the comfort of my own home, at the pace I want and be my own boss.

I could provide high quality admin support for businesses accross the world (potentially)!

oh boy I found my destiny!