The moment of truth – Photos of when I spoke to HM the Queen

Hi everyone

I know it’s hard for me to believe that I met and spoke with HM the Queen at St James’s Palace on the 15th of July. Therefore it must be hard for some of you to believe it too. Here is proof from the official photographer, Theodore Wood Photography, http://www.onlinepictureproof.com/theodorewoodphotography that it did happen.

I was at St James’s Palace for the Community Service Volunteers (CSV) 50th Anniversary celebration.

To see the full range of CSV event photos, go to the website and click on “Events” – “Community Service Volunteers” – “View Album.” I am on page 7 of 10. These two photos are the best photos of me and HM the Queen. The music on the website is very beautiful too.

I hope you enjoyed these?

Write soon

Sandra

I Have Been Chosen To Meet HM The Queen

Hi everyone

I am very happy and excited to have been chosen to meet Her Majesty the Queen, at St James’s Palace, on Monday 15th of July.

For those of you who follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you may already know this and a few of you I have mentioned it to in my comments. For the rest of my lovely blog followers, the last update I gave you, was that I had been invited to St James’s Palace in the presence of HM the Queen. I have since had a letter to say I have been chosen to meet HM the Queen.

I have been sent a map of the inside of the Palace and have been told I am group 10, in the Queen Anne Room, to meet the Queen.

There is a red dotted line to indicate which route HM the Queen will take.

There are instructions of what I should say and do when I meet HM the Queen.

I am going there, to celebrate CSV (Community Service Volunteers) 50th anniversary. I do voluntary work as a Health Buddy for CSV and got nominated by my Manager to go.

If someone had told me a few years ago, that in the future I would be meeting HM the Queen at St James’s Palace, I would have laughed and said they had a vivid imagination, or yes, in my dreams. But I did something very important in my life, I changed my attitude and my belief in myself.

When I was made redundant for the second time in my life, in 2009, this was the starting point of that change. I knew from then on, that I was born 100% to write and to help others who have been made redundant to get back into work. It was the start of my creative journey. However, needing money and taking on a succession of temporary jobs, that I wasn’t happy in, took it’s toll, and although I still had these goals in mind, I didn’t do much about them at that time.

By the end of 2009, I got a job as an Assistant Manager of a shop and a couple of months later I was promoted to Shop Manager. The drawback was, most weeks I would be working 60 hours a week instead of my contracted 40.

In October 2010, I got headhunted to work as a Sales Person for more money doing less hours and so I took it. After almost a year of working there, I decided to take a year out from work, to develop myself, my skills, my knowledge and expertise to grow as a person and to finally fulfil my destiny of writing and helping others to get back into work. During that time, I gained all of those and so much more.

Although I am working again in a retail sales job during the day, I have chosen to be in a job as a Sales Person not as a Manager, so my hours are stable and kept to a minimum. The pay is not great but I can focus on building two businesses around my two goals during the evenings and my time off. I now know what action to take to make progress with those two goals. I still have time to do courses and to develop myself as a person. I am continuing on the path to fulfil my dreams and you can do it too. I am living proof that dreams can come true. Never, ever, give up on your own dreams. Believe they are achievable and that anything is possible.

Be blessed with what you have,
fight for what you want,
believe in yourself,
helps others along the way,
take action,
change when you are able to
and never look back.

Keep looking forward because your future is in your hands.
Treat yourself kindly,
look after those who are important in your life,
allow yourself ups and downs,
you are only human.
Above all, love yourself, live life to the max and do what makes you happy over and over again.

Until next time, keep writing and keep smiling.

Write soon
Sandra

My Invitation to St James’s Palace

Hi Everyone

I thought you may be interested to read my latest post from my other blog http://www.beatredundancyblues.wordpress.com – here it is below:

As you probably know http://www.beatredundancyblues.com is your one stop resource for redundancy. As well as the practical aspects of redundancy it also covers health and wellbeing including stress, anxiety and depression.

You may like to know that I do voluntary work as a Health Buddy for CSV (Community Service Volunteers) in association with BBC Radio Devon. We promote health messages, learn from health specialists and encourage the 5 ways to wellbeing:

Connect
Be Active
Take Notice
Learn
Give

On Wednesday 10th of March, I went to a CSV Health Buddy celebration of music and activities from local refugees who are being looked after by Devon and Cornwall Refugee Support.

I could not help but take notice of the variety of talent amongst the refugees. There were lots of activities including singing, sports, character making out of carrots and foods from their country. I learnt more about them and the foods they eat. People from different backgrounds connected and it was lovely of them to give up their afternoon to entertain and teach us.

At this event I was pleasantly surprised to be presented with a bouquet of flowers and a Certificate of Achievement for helping a distressed and vulnerable person as part of my role as a CSV (Community Service Volunteer) Health Buddy.

I was even more thrilled to be told that I had been chosen to represent the CSV organisation at their 50th anniversary celebration, to be held at St James’s Palace in London on Monday 15th of July 2013. In the presence of Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh.

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I feel incredibly honoured to be chosen for.

Redundancy can make you feel deflated and powerless. Take back the control in your life by discovering what you were born to do and make it happen for yourself.

I am living my dreams and I want you to be too.

Stay positive

Sandra Bellamy

What’s Holding You Back? – Skills and Experience – Beat Redundancy Blues

Hi Everyone

As you may know, I am currently working on my first e-Book about redundancy and helping people to get back into work and I have another WordPress blog to support this mission at http://www.beatredundancyblues.wordpress.com

I wanted to share with you my latest post from that blog, as the information is relevant to any job you go for.

So here it is:

Now that we have settled into the new year, you will probably have noticed a lot of posts about goal setting and how you need to take action in order to move forward with your life. These posts are an invaluable source of information and inspiration and they are absolutely right, if you want to achieve your desired outcome, you need to take the steps to get there by setting goals and then acting on them but in the next few posts I want us to take a look at what may be holding you back from setting goals in the first place.

Sometimes in order for you to move forward you must reflect on the past and assess the present to see what changes need to be made. If you keep doing the same thing then you will always get the same result. If you are not happy with the result then you need to change what you are doing and there is no time like the present, so what are you waiting for?

Let’s consider some of the things that may be holding you back.

Not having the right skills or experience

There is no easy way to say this, if you haven’t got the right skills and experience for the job role that you desire, in these difficult economic times, you need to either obtain them or learn to convert previous experience and learnt skills into transferable experience and skills and if you can’t do that then you probably won’t get a look in because the competition is so tough.

Do not be fooled by a job advert that states: “Previous experience is not essential as full training will be given for the right candidate.”

If the interviewer can get a person with previous experience who has the correct basic skills, the right attitude for the job and is the right fit for the team, then they will go with them instead of someone with little or no experience. When I was a retail manager I recruited my own staff and I advertised for the experience and skills that I required and yes I still got applicants applying with little or no relevant experience and as time is money in business, usually I would sift theses applications out on first look as I had a large number of applicants. Of the applicants that were sifted out there may have been some that had the right attitude or were a good fit for the team but because I didn’t put them through to the interview stage I would never know this, so having the right skills and experience is essential.

When I wasn’t working, on the odd occasion I would apply for a job that was out of my sector and one that I had little or no relevant skills or experience in, just as I thought, I would get a reject letter or worse, nothing at all. Upon analysis, the reason I got a rejection letter was because I appeared on paper to have some of the skills and experience that were relative to the job and some transferable skills but obviously not as good a offering as someone who blatantly had the skills and experience in that sector and therefore I wasn’t surprised I was rejected and took it on the chin. When I received no reply whatsoever, it was because on paper there were barely any skills and experience relevant to the role for which I had applied, so why should the employer bother to reply to me when it looked like I had randomly decided to ‘give it a go’. An employer wouldn’t like this attitude and to be honest neither do I and when I became a manager I understood that and if I were to apply for a job now I would always tailor my CV and Cover Letter to the Job specification and that’s why I get responses when a lot of other people don’t, so if you are struggling to get responses, now you know the secret, why not try it for yourself?

If you want to gain the skills and experience to get a job you desire, you need to do voluntary work, work experience and you may need to take a course as well.

To read about what else may be holding you back be sure to read the next post on http://www.beatredundancyblues.wordpress.com and whatever you do, stay positive.

Sandra Bellamy

Tell me how you have got on with job applications?

Still to come on quirkybooks.wordpress.com, The One Lovely Blog Award nominations.