5 August 2010

Filming The Remote Worker Awards

What a delightful day we had yesterday. One of those rare days when you can escape the home office and have loads of serious fun.

We were filming a few video clips for The Remote Worker Awards with Procom (www.procom.uk.com). An early start at 5am saw us heading south. We arrived at Wisborough Green in West Sussex to meet Becci Coombes from Girls Travel Club, whose family has a lovely leafy property surrounded by fields and woodlands.

Here we filmed Becci working from her mulAnderson Sheltertiple home offices – a caravan embedded amongst the trees, a log cabin surrounded by trees thriving with bird life and the quaintest, yet leaky World War Anderson Shelter almost taken over by creepers, tendrils of ivy and families of moss and eggs incubating beside her kiln oven. 

Becci runs a glass making business in the bunker, she is writing a travel book in the caravan and she runs her Girls Travel Club (www.girlstravelclub.co.uk) in the log cabin. Talented lady! 
Video Shoot 012
It was so peaceful being surrounded by so much greenery and so many different places to work, I was inspired to write a blog about ‘what’s the view from your office window’ so watch out for that coming soon. We are also hoping to get some media coverage about this topic to see how other people are inspired by the view from their window.

Becci has entered the BT Home Business Award and is proud that not one, but four home businesses are run from her families home!

Next we stopped at Hove and met up with Karen Moran who also runs a family business from home.

We were welcoVideo Shoot 027med by her energetic 2 year old pup who scampered up the garden to show us Karen’s ‘shed’ - I envy her garden ‘shed’ so much I have to have one!  Karen’s husband started building it as a shed, but it soon became more than that with glass sheets to show off the view.

The shed quickly became the families bolt-hole, where they all escape for private solitude, productive, quality work time, me time, to muse or simply just chill and daydream.

Built from wood and sheets of glass, it overlooks a large mature garden surrounded by lovely plants and trees and conjures images of holiday in the sun. As a

If you stand on your tip toes you can see the sea. I’m not sure how Video Shoot 035much work I would get done in there as I would just stare dreamily out at the view of Hove all day long!

Karen has entered both The BT Home Business Award and The OfficePOD Award. Her employees will also be entering The Microsoft Remote Worker Award and The Lexmark Home Worker Award as everyone in her business work remotely or work from home.

Communications expert Karen and Oxbow Media (www.oxboxmedia.co.uk) ensure every aspect of design and marketing gives your company an identity.

Karen invited the crew to her beach hut and introduced us to another ‘room with a view’ as Ken experienced the ultimate in remote working as he tip tapped away on his laptop beside the sea. He too wouldn’t get much done with that stunning view!   

Lastly, at the end of a long ol’ day, we were entertained by Rosie’s drama kids of The Sussex Helen O’ Grady Drama Academy.

This little group haVideo Shoot 042d all of us smiling and chuckling, despite being dead on our feet from a non-stop round trip of filming.

With only two weeks of practise for their play - about two naughty foxes who steal a farmer’s chickens – the class was surprisingly already well versed and knew their lines.

We hope their play will show potential entrants to The Helen O' Grady Special Award what a rewarding job teaching children drama can be.

And all they have to do is enter the award to win their own home based franchise worth £15k!

What fun! I could do this every day … okay, maybe not every day, but more than the odd occasion would do. 

foxes  little boy

Special thanks to the guys at OfficePOD, Becci,  Karen and Rosie for welcoming our motley film crew and being such perfect hosts!

But the star of the show was Alec Hall-Shaw from Procom who did a brilliant job filming all the reels of ideas, fueVideo Shoot 029lled only on a quick bite of a Bacon and Brie sandwich and a slurp of Apple Juice.

Amazing! 

Alec’s patience and calm demeanour is just what you need when you are trying to shoot several clips across a 300 mile round trip.

Despite bumpy roads, beating country tracks, going aerial over a hump back bridge and several devours we still made the final destination just in the nick of time thanks to Ken’s skill at being a rally driver.

If none of that ruffled Alec’s feathers, I wonder what would?

We couldn’t recommend Alec highly enough for all types of viVideo Shoot 007deo work, from a quick ‘e-mercial’, wide angle photography, to a big corporate event or business conference, Alec and his faithful video camera will be perfect companions for any film shoot.

Please give Alec a call if you need any video shoots.

Watch out for our video log on You Tube, due to be uploaded later this week. See all the images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulawynne/



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How to set up a home office ...

Before you set up a work station at home, check out our Seven Top Tips on how to work from home:

Your Home Office
Ideally, you will have a spare room to create a home office. If not, a corner of another room, will be fine as long as you are not constantly distracted in the family fast lane. Set up your kitSet up your computer, files and phone to give you maximum comfort for long hours. Have enough plug points for PC, printer, phone, scanner, mobile charger, fax machine and answer phone. Even better get an all in once mod con to save on a jumble of cables and wires.

Pick your desk location
You should be able to see the door of the office from where you are sitting or at least more of your surroundings. Beware of facing the garden and the bird bath – too tempting to watch the world go by! A hard chair will give you backache so spend a little extra on a good one.

Working Hours
Working outside 'normal' working hours helps to balance your work and home life so don't feel guilty dashing off to take the lads to footie after school, as long as you get your work done. Catching up in the early morning or later in the evening works well, but also watch out for going OTT. Make sure you close down and walk away at some point or the family will go hungry.

Have a breather
No matter what kind of work you do or what home you do it in, you can go bonkers if you spend 24 hours a day at it. Get out, whenever you can, to clear your head and to see other people. Use lunch time as a good break to pop down to pick up groceries for dinner, step outside to feed the birds during your coffee break or walk the dog around the block to clear the cobwebs. This is also a great way to mull over a document or get inspiration for new ideas.

Keep in Touch
Have no fear that your social life at work comes to an end if you leave your office to work from home, in fact in some cases your relationship with your colleagues may improve. Email is instant but be careful of 'funnies' – they can eat up a huge chunk of time. Chat through business issues by phone and meet for a quick bite every now and then.

Goal scoring
Give yourself little goals and objectives and then reward yourself when they are complete. Make sure family and friends know your hours or days of working at home and stick to that. Don't be tempted to pop over for a coffee or cook a large meal. Give yourself this time as a reward for getting up early on a Monday to finish a long-winded report. Or if you score well with a new client take five to put your feet up before the school run. Whatever incentives work for you, use them to motivate yourself to balance your time around your other responsibilities.

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