By GillHB
The podcast currently has 89 episodes available.
Before recording this episode I was looking at Eleanor's Hunt website https://www.thewoollencwtchcompany.com/ , and thought she must have been honing her skill of weaving beautiful willow and British wool coffins for years. How wrong can you be?!
I've just started learning how to weave with willow and like anything new when you try it you discover just what a skill it is to weave anything! So I was blown away when I learnt Eleanor's story of how she left teaching and is now making really beautiful coffins inside and out.
She started her company back in 2021 but she had only recently started willow and rope weaving during covid and actually taught herself to do it! She had moved to mid Wales and having helped out on farms as a lambing assistant appreciated all the amazing benefits of wool and wanted to help British sheep farmers raise the price of their wool. She knew it would have to be commercial enough to achieve her goal. She had an idea...
We chat about how no skill is wasted and how each skill she has learnt along the way from: upholstery, to felting, to weaving seats, to sewing, to processing wool, to spinning, to making her own rope...are all being used in making her beautiful coffins.
I also find out the meaning of her company name - with Cwtch being a Welsh word.
Her attitude to life is evident from her story. She just keeps moving forward, she never sees anything as a failure but an opportunity to learn how to do better and she's keen to seek out help and advice - which is how she met another inspiring woman Kate Drury and her sustainable rope (Kate's story is episode 80).
Her story and passion for wool is infectious and will inspire anyone who listens to it, me included!
Note: I'm so happy to add that since recording the podcast a couple of weeks ago Eleanor has achieved full accreditation for her coffins. Most crematoriums in the UK now require coffins to have passed through a specially designed testing protocol. This means that her coffins can now be used in cremations as well as in burials and will have a blue stamp on the base with it's own unique code. Congratulations Eleanor.
I met Michele many years ago, we are both trained coaches and Master Practitioners of NLP, when we were both assistants on Dr Richard Bandler's NLP courses. Since then we have both gone in different directions and Michele is now a highly experienced trauma informed therapist. She is trained by Gabor Maté in Compassionate Inquiry, Dr Richard Schwartz in Internal Family systems as well as a hypnotherapist and coach.
Michele came to specialise in narcissism through wanting to understand more about her own behaviours and experiences. She is an expert in knowing about narcissism in all its various guises so was the ideal person to ask how narcissism fits in with childhood trauma and how that can result in becoming a people pleaser.
She clarifies how the role of being a people pleaser serves someone but can then hinder them later in life. She also explains the difference between a narcissist and having a narcissistic personality disorder as well as the various types of narcissist that can hide in plain sight.
Did you know that of ALL the global textiles only 1% is wool and of that 1% only 1% is UK wool?
Kate Drury is a 4th generation sheep farmer. She lives in Yorkshire and explains why that is the perfect location for her business www.sustainablerope.com and how she came to make wool rope. She is passionate about keeping the business in the UK so she knows each stage of the process and that in turn means she helps British farmers and manufacturers maintain their businesses.
Launching her business has involved learning a lot about other industries as well as doing the scientific research on her own product.
As Kate explains there are 4 lens through which to see value in a business: social, economic, environmental and purpose and that maybe economic needs not to be number one but further down the list. The business has a no waste policy and any bit of wool, however small is reused.
We chat about how you can get other industries and supplies to become more sustainable and as Kate says when looking to work with other industries it's important to 'Focus on change not blame'. We chat about what exactly does sustainability look like in an industry and how complex the subject actually is e.g. Is it better to use recyclable materials on your doorstep rather than ship in biodegradable items from another country?
Karen was in academia, about to start a Phd, but knew she wanted to be involved in gardening so despite people saying 'you're wasting your qualifications' and takigna paycut she followed her dream and became a gardener on a large estate supporint peole with mental health challenges.
It was whilst working as a gardener she learnt how to weave obelisks and plant supports. The more weaving she did the more she wanted to learn. so enrolled on a course and did lots of different classes with different weavers over the years (and still does attend courses). As she learnt about each basket she also learnt about the heritage and history of each different basket shape and becoe even more hooked!
As a single Mum she attempted to do both roles and support her 2 children. During covid because her role was outside she was allowed to continue to go to work whilst her childern had to remain at home. She realised she was supporting people's mental health at work but her children needed it as much at home. This then brought about her next career decision to become a full time basket maker so she could be around for her children.
Karen shares each stage of her journey and how much more there is to learn from a basket and what it tell us about our history. https://www.karenbekwillow.co.uk/
When wandering around a garden centre have you ever thought about all those plastic pots we buy our plants in and what happens to them? What do you do with yours? Bin them? hide them in the shed never to use again? Give them to a friend who grows things from seed or divides plants?
Well apart from hiding in someone's shed or being re-used by growers over 500million of them get sent to landfill! They don't degrade and take on average between 400 - 450 years to break down into micro and nano plastics and we all know where they end up!
On the other side farmers with smaller herds of sheep are simply burning their fleeces as there is no viable market for them and it costs more to shear them than the wool is worth. Crazy world we live in.
Graham Hull had an idea and together with his business partner Tom came up with, what not only turned out to be a sustainable idea, but a win win for everyone.
I was given some wool pots as a gift last year and absolutely loved them so bought more for growing my seeds this year.
I find out where the idea came from, the challenges in not only setting up a new business but within the horticultuaral industry as well. www.wool-pots.co.uk
This quote came to mind as I was chatting to Mitty - “People who say it cannot be done, should not interrupt those who are doing it", George Bernard Shaw. My 'friend' on this podcast is defintiely the person doing it!
Meet Mitty who, not only decided to start her business www.bridieandbert.com 3 years ago in covid, but also turned 60 this year which she celebrated by going to India - not just for pleasure also for business.
I'm very keen to discover how it all started, where did she get the idea from and find out what her great motivators are for growing her business - it involves a big kitchen! Her story starts way back when she was a little girl and she had her mother who kept their childhood clothes wrapped up in tissue paper.
Since covid she's built an online and wholesale business and now has 3 shops opening in St Mawes, Salcombe ad St Ives which she is eager for everyone to pop into and say hello if you're in one of those towns. She's also got great plans for the future (if you know anyone who lives on the East coast of America or involved with cruise companies she'd like your help) including expanding her range of clothes and her number of shops. Watch out Lymington and other seaside towns Bridie and Bert are heading your way!
Mitty knows who she is, how she works best and has learned to do things her way and ignore other people's fears. WARNING: Her enthusiasm, passion for life and all she does is very infectious!!
In this episode it's all about 'sustainable fashion'
Gill chats to Sarah Franken a young entrepreneur about how she came to set up the online magazine 'Lumera'. The focus of the magazine is to highlight sustainable brands and Gill finds out what is sustainable fashion and how complicated it can get!
Sarah explains that at university she wasn't particularly passionate about sustainability but how, a few years later, she accidentally walked into a panel talk all about sustainable fashion and it gave her a whole new perspective and passion to pursue. Lumera was born.
They discuss what constitutes as 'sustainable fashion' and what are the bigger challenges involved? Sarah explains what the 3 main sustainability categories are.
Gill mentions about how when she was younger it was normal for families to have a 'button and zip box'. Sarah uses a great quote as an example as to why we now simply discard clothes: "Clothes have gone from being a valuable item to becoming a disposable item".
The discussion widens out to look at: how do you get people to change their mindset / perception around their fashionable clothing buying habits when large cheaper brands target them in their marketing? How does the industry overcome the dilemma of what would be seen as sustainable fashion for one group of people is viewed differently by another. What is 'greenwashing' and how does the consumer know if a brand is doing this?
They both agree that with anything in life it has to be easy for the consumer to navigate.
Links to the articles mentioned in the podcast:
To subscribe to the magazine: https://lumeramag.com/ or follow them on social media @lumeramag. Or if you are a sustainable brand or know of one please contact Sarah by email [email protected] so she can add it to her list or Gill to do a podcast!
I don't know many entrepreneurs, let alone someone of Holly's age, who does literally everything in their new business - from building the website, to making the bespoke items to taking the photographs of her products.
She explains how rêvedesalpes.com came about from an idea / dream her Mum and Aunt had many years ago. On gaining her Masters and realising she didn't want to remain in marketing she picked up the idea and started the business.
Holly is very keen on sustainability and it is at the heart of her business and everything to do with it. The bespoke items she makes as the orders come in to avoid wastage, she sources other items from vintage shops and even her packaging can be recycled.
As well as running her own business Holly also writes for the online magazine Lumera which is about educating people on sustainable fashion.
Clare and Catherine met at the school gates when their children were young and started running an after school club together for many years before deciding it was time to do something new.
Gill finds out what made them decide to star a new environmentally friendly business. What were the driving forces behind it? How do they decide what to stock and how much to stock when starting a new business?
She dsicovers that they test all the products themselves to ensure they work and really are environmentally friendly. As Clare tells Gill they realised that one downside is that because a lot of things they sell are long lasting customers don't need to keep returning to buy them! This is just one of the challenges because inevitably the products are more expensive than the equivalent suppermarket item as they last longer - like their bamboo kitchen roll - so it's getting customers to make the mindset switch that in the longer run they do actually work out much cheaper.
We chat about everything from green bleach to ragbags (remember them? and yes I still have one) to terry nappies. @planetfriendlyliving.co.uk
Being typically British Jamie and Gill start by chatting about the weather and how it's creating challenges over the last couple of years for us growing veg!
Jamie's tomatoes haven't been ripening and he's discovered that he shouldn't be watering them as much so Gill gives him some extra tips to speed up the process. They finally get round to chatting about friends and friendship groups and how they can change and the stresses that they can create. Jamie says he doesn't really have many friends as he has big family whereas Gill describes how she sees her friends move in and out of her circles - sometimes in a close circle other times further away.
The podcast currently has 89 episodes available.