No more hiding our light under a bushel
When you’re busy doing the day job you can lose some perspective – I’ve no doubt that’s happened to us all at one time or another. You’re leading your organisation through the mist, fog lights on, striving to navigate the hurdles of the everyday, whilst you continue to deliver brilliance – the very brilliance that you always expect and desire to achieve, because for our clients it’s always business as usual.
Then something happens that almost drags you off your seat so you’re compelled to take up a new standpoint. Only then are you able to stop and really appreciate through the eyes of your peers in ‘the outside world’ that the value you’re managing to deliver is not only brilliant, but exemplary.
That’s what happened to me earlier this week. At the IMA Annual Conference ‘Money Advice Awards 2018’ my long-standing colleague and talented member of our Money Advice Team at Citizens Advice Gateshead, Lynn Crawford won the prestigious award “Money Adviser of the Year 2018”. Of course we already knew Lynn was brilliant, as do the hundreds of clients she helps every year to get through often significant and serious financial difficulties. She is a fabulous adviser. She’s caring, compassionate and highly skilled in her specialist field, and critically she’s also a great campaigner for social justice as well as being a fabulous ambassador for Citizens Advice Gateshead. So this independent acknowledgement of brilliance is something that we and Lynn are really proud to receive.
Awards are not something we’ve ever actively sought. We’re a charity that has a serious and critical role to play, to make sure that people in Gateshead are able to take control of their lives when they’re facing difficult times. It almost seems flippant to be seeking the spotlight for what we would do anyway, because it’s the right thing to do. But actually, having the chance to remember that what we’re doing isn’t just ‘run of the mill’, and for colleagues to have a chance to be recognised for excellence, is definitely something we all need, at least occasionally. It motivates, it makes us proud, and it gets a message out to any doubters there may (or may not) be that the work of Citizens Advice Gateshead is just as relevant and imperative today as it was when our charity was established over 60 years ago.
No, no more hiding our light under a bushel, and huge congratulations again to Lynn Crawford, IMA Money Adviser of the Year 2018.