Discover how your sense of humour can help you at work and mix with the comedy stars of the future at the first of our live ‘in person’ workplace events since before lockdown.
HOW TO HAVE FUN AT WORK is a live interactive event aimed at boosting your confidence in public and we’re bringing back networking baby! That said, we network to our own tune, through workshops, fun and games, smaller groups and some excellent funny women in the room to guide you along the way.
Hosted by Grey London at their brand new HQ Rose Court on Thursday 13th October and supported by SheSays, we have a fun packed four-hour programme for you to tap into your comedy mojo.
Why?
Given that we spend a lot of our adult lives working, having some fun should be integral to your experience, whether your workplace is a virtual reality or an actual office. Either way, we communicate best and remember things more easily with a sprinkling of humour.
Funny Women has been empowering women in the comedy industry for 20 years and launched its HERlarious programme in 2018 to encourage female creatives to have their voice. It’s staggering that, at the time of launch, only 3% of the world’s creative directors were women and 83% of adverts were made by men, even though women are collectively responsible for over 90% of purchases. Has the dial moved on this?
So we didn’t stand around twiddling our thumbs on this one and came up with a series of special events, featuring workshops, panel discussion, essential networking and live stand up comedy, now playfully rebranded HOW TO HAVE FUN AT WORK, which is also the name of our founder Lynne Parker’s podcast.
What can you expect?
Lynne has been on a mission to promote workplace humour for years, ever since she was first invited into various companies to deliver her Stand Up to Stand Out comedy workshops as part of corporate training programmes. HOW TO HAVE FUN AT WORK is an extension of this and includes four amazing short workshops (you can do two) run by some amazing guest facilitators.
They are:
Improvise to Succeed with Monica Gaga
Thinking on your feet is a vital tool for both business and personal success. Improvisation is an amazing skill to develop and enhances creativity. Explore how to deliver your own messages with confidence and learn how to interpret and use body language.
Monica Gaga is a British-born black African queer improviser, facilitator, host, performer and producer. She trained in Community Theatre at East 15 Acting School, and her boundless love for improv stems from time spent at Second City in Chicago. She’ll lead you through improv exercises aimed at improving your performance.
How to ‘Notwork’ and The Imposter with Gemma Greaves
Building on the theme of how to have fun at work (amen to that), Gemma Greaves will share her top tips on building relationships. Find out what we have in common and make invaluable connections. Expect an energising session and leave armed with knowhow to tackle that imposter inside and brimming with confidence. To ‘notwork’ and just go for it!
Gemma is the co-founder of Nurture, a black book business built on the principle that meaningful relationships drive growth, and the founder of Cabal, a handpicked club of extraordinary (and humble) people. She was previously Chief Executive of The Marketing Society, where she led its global expansion and spearheaded the Brave agenda. Gemma describes herself as a restless connector of people and ideas, always looking for ways to create new experiences driven by her fundamental belief that if you bring good people together, good things happen.
Creating Content and Influencing People with Chanel Williams
Content is queen and the age of the influencer is here to stay. Humour fuels engagement on social media and the new generation of comedy content creators have us right where they want us when it comes to making money! How do you get started and how can brands work with creators? Get first hand advice and insights from a successful creator.
Chanel Williams is a social media entertainer blowing people away with her TikTok sketches, impression work, and comedic twist on popular franchises. The main one being Harry Potter. Since starting online in November 2020, Chanel has amassed over 3.5M followers across Youtube, TikTok and Instagram. Chanel performed her first solo stand up show in July this year and went on to win the heat Content Creator Award in the 2022 Funny Women Awards last week. She will be in conversations with Carmen Mackey, who is the Awards Coordinator for Funny Women.
Power and Influence with Lauren Allpress
Humour is an essential ingredient in today’s fast paced workplace and it’s a great leveller whatever your age, culture, sexuality or ability. Get advice on how you can stand up and be heard in high or low places, whatever your background, build on your authentic style and develop your own personal story. Improve your self-confidence and esteem, communicate more effectively and memorably, find your voice and engage with passion.
Lauren Allpress is an activist and feminist campaigner from Manchester, currently living in Camden. She is Campaigns Officer for her local Labour Party branch, and spent four years between the 2010 and 2015 UK general elections working as a Regional Organiser for the Labour Party, mainly in Wales. She spends most of her time being angry, talking to other angry women about being angry, and scrolling Instagram. Her last day job was in policy and communications campaigns at Airbnb.
And there’s more…
After we’ve got to know each other in the workshops, there’s a panel session hosted by our founder Lynne Parker where we’ll unpack the thorny issue of how we can really have ‘fun at work’ and make it a key part of our communications and business ethos. Featuring some great guests from business and comedy including Laura Jordan Bambach president and CCO of our hosts, Grey London, Jon Jayson joint founder and CEO of The Comedy Crowd, Karen Carter, director of CVent and Hela Wosniak-Kay ‘Connectress’ and the ‘soul’ of Sister Snog.
After that, you can stay around for a few drinks and nibbles courtesy of our generous hosts, Grey London, and put all that relaxed humorous banter we’ve practised to the test.
The evening ends with our trademark live comedy including the only double award winner in the history of the Funny Women Awards, Lorna Rose Treen. Hosted by Monica Gaga with Charmian Hughes, a surprise guest or two and a headline performance by our new queen of stage and screen. Come and find out why!
All the booking details are here and there’s discounts for SheSays and other network partners. We’re also allocating a few bursary places because we don’t want you to miss out on some fun stuff that might help you get back on the career path if money is a bit tight.
Email kirstin.miller@funnywomen.com if you think you qualify or you would like a discount code for your network.
Our aim is for you to walk away with the confidence to express yourself more freely using some of the tried and tested tricks of the comedy trade. If you are a first-jobber, intern, returner to the workplace or simply need a post Covid confidence boost, a comedy fix could be just what you need.
See you there!
