Announcing the Winners of JewelFund 2018
Blog
Introducing the winners of our two £1000 JewelFund grants for 2018...
Firstly, I’d like to thank every jeweller that applied. As you might expect, we had hundreds and hundreds of applications with lots of interesting and innovative ways to spend the money to support your jewellery businesses. I enlisted the help of three jewellers with shortlisting the applications and although I know everyone says it, it really was hard to make a final decision about who to award the funds to as there were a lot of worthy applications.
In the end, I decided to pick a more established jeweller and a jeweller relatively new to business, both of whom I feel will really grow their businesses with the help of the grants.
The winners will get a £1000 grant each to be spent on their jewellery business, 1-year membership for Jewellers Academy and one to one business coaching with me every six weeks for a year. I’m looking forward to sharing their progress with you on the blog.
Introducing the winners!
Rachel Whitehead is based in Birmingham, UK and has been in business since 2016. She was selected by John Lewis to represent the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter in their Birmingham store and made the 100 pieces she needed from her kitchen table! She sells on Not on the High Street and Etsy but is still working part-time.
I chose Rachel because I was impressed by her vision and ambition for her business. She was very clear about how she would use the money and what the benefit would be to her business growth.
@rwhiteheadjewel on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter
Zoe Porter is based in Wellington in New Zealand. She took the Advanced Diploma in Creative Jewellery at the London Jewellery School in 2015 and has since set up her jewellery business. She designs and creates silver and gold Fairtrade jewellery and is now working from a shared studio. Zoe wants to use the funds to help improve her photography, create a lookbook to take to galleries and shops and to invest in a jewellery cabinet to display her work.
I chose Zoe because I can see the potential in her work, I love that she has an ethical business and feel this capital will really help her to grow what she has already created.
@zoeporterjewellery on Facebook and Instagram
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR TWO WINNERS!
I am looking forward to mentoring and supporting Rachel and Zoe over the next year.
I am planning to run JewelFund again in 2019 and I encourage everyone who applied this year to apply again. If you would like to be informed when applications for JewelFund open please do add your email address here and I’ll be in touch in 2019.
If you are determined to build your jewellery business do join me in Jewellers Academy. I am working hard with a team of jewellers to provide you with practical resources and support to build your business and increase your sales. Doors are closing on membership at the end of July so my team can concentrate on our members we have, so now is a great time to join us!