At the beginning of this year, we asked readers to apply to times2 for a
unique mentoring scheme. Five people at the top of their field in theatre,
business, education, fiction writing and sport offered to give their time
free to help five readers to realise their lifetime ambition. And your
response was overwhelming.; After carefully considering the hundreds of
applications, each mentor selected a “mentee” to whom they will be giving
guidance until the end of the year. Here, they meet each other for their
initial get-togethers. The mentees describe what their projects are, how
they hope to be helped and their first impression of their mentor, while
their new “teachers” outline their reasons for choosing them.
Fitness and wellbeing
Sharron Davies, 46, former British Olympic swimmer, chose Sarah Brooks, 33, a
mother of two and assistant headteacher to help her restore her work/life
balance.
Sarah
My need is to get in shape for my tenth wedding anniversary trip next year to
New York. While we were on holiday in St Ives I read The Times and applied
to Sharron to help me to turn my life around. I've been assistant head at
South Wolds Community School, in Keyworth, outside Nottingham, for a year
and am in charge of 350 pupils doing GCSEs. I teach science up to GCSE level
and biology A level four days a week, as I have done for ten years now.
I was born in Lincoln in 1975 and studied biology at university before going
on to do a postgrad in teacher training at Warwick. My husband Matt and I
have been married nine years and we have two children, Emily, 7, and Sam, 4.
We met when I was 16 and were both at school. I've been desperate to change
my eating and exercise habits for some time. Since having children, I've
slowly put on weight and no longer feel confident about my body shape. I am
a very bubbly person, but recently have begun to dread nights out, as I feel
I look unattractive and overweight. The “spare tyre” has grown, my arms are
flabby and I've lost my once-thin waist. It's been enough, at times, to
reduce me to tears. The sad thing is that I know what I should be doing. But
the reality is that I already feel like I'm running my life to full capacity
and don't know how to fit more activities into my day.
On an average day I'm up at 6am to take the children to the childminder and be
in the office by 8am. Breakfast is normally a slice of toast as I'm heading
out. I teach or have meetings until 3.30pm and have after-school or parent
meetings once school is finished. I get home at 6pm, and most evenings are
taken up with marking or planning classes for the next day - at least for 90
minutes most nights. But then I've still got to get the kids into bed and
cook dinner. At weekends, we have loads of family time, but I never seem to
have time to exercise. We tend to go out to the park and take the kids
swimming and in the evenings, Matt and I will settle down in front of the TV
or a DVD with a bowl of popcorn. I don't drink during the week and have only
a few glasses of wine at weekends, so alcohol isn't an issue. I don't eat
crisps either, but I do crave chocolate and cake.
Since I had Sam, I've developed a really sweet tooth. When my kids are in bed,
Matt and I will sit down with a cup of tea and a tin of biscuits. I want to
lose 7lb, so that's one habit that's got to go. I also want to feel fitter
and more toned. I was nervous about meeting Sharron, but I felt more at ease
once we started talking. She came across as a normal person who has to
juggle a lot and sympathised with me as a working mum.
To start with, she's given me some exercises I can do at home and recommended
that I swap the chocolate, or some of it, for dried fruits and nuts,
crackers and low-fat cheese. We didn't talk about portion size as she's not
into calorie counting because she thinks you can get obsessed with calories.
By the end of the year, I want to have lost my target weight, feel more
confident about my bodyshape and incorporate exercise into family life. We
also talked about getting a dog.
Sharron
My first impressions of Sarah were that she was a very nice, normal
hard-working mum with two young kids and a supportive husband, who's trying
to make everything work - which is why I chose her, because she's doing what
most mums do, ie, putting herself at the bottom of the list all the time,
and that's what I want to change.
Her targets are sensible. It's not as if she's trying to lose 3st and wants to
be pencil thin, she just wants to lose 7lb and change her lifestyle.
She has one day a week off, on a Wednesday. So I've suggested that she spends
one hour a week in the gym, doing cardio and weights, and then spends
another hour swimming or having some me-time in the mornings. Through my
contacts, David Lloyd's have offered her a six-month free membership, so she
won't have to fork out for a club, but later she could always use the
council's facilities if she doesn't want to carry on with it.
Then I suggested that three times a week she spend half an hour watching the
news on her cross-trainer at home, which is excellent for mums who have
young children, and ten minutes doing weights (which you can pick up for
under a tenner at TKMaxx) to tone up her arms. So it's a way of modifying
her week, but it demands only one day of planning and involves a little bit
more “me time”, which is important.
We did talk about food, although she eats reasonably healthily. The main
recommendation that I made was to suggest that the family does not eat after
7pm. It's a cheat's way to losing weight, because if you eat late, you slow
down your metabolism and if you exercise you increase your metabolism. So if
you eat a lot before you go to bed, you're cancelling all the good you've
done during the day.
Basically, I wanted to suggest things that were not drastic changes but would
change her life drastically. I'm no believer in saying that you must sweat
buckets and run three marathons because it's not going to happen. But if her
children see her doing this, not only might she maintain it, but they will
follow.
Target for September
For Sarah to incorporate exercise into her week at least three times using
her crosstrainer at home.
Starting up a business
Jamie Murray-Wells, 25, CEO and founder of Glasses Direct, chose Sophie
Croydon, 31, to help to set up RentYourRocks.com
Sophie
I was brought up in Woodbridge, Suffolk and studied psychology at Newcastle.
After uni, I temped in London, before working at Monster, the jobs website
company, setting up a US teeth whitening company and then ending with
Hamptons estate agents.
Then I was called by a management consultant working with our family business
- Winsor Bishop in Norwich - about whether I'd be interested in taking over
managing the company from Dad.
Initially I was a bit sceptical, but from the moment that I walked through the
door, I loved it. But I needed to get qualified in jewellery, so I went to
study at the Gemological Institute of America, in Carlsbad, California.
After three weeks I had to come home suddenly because Mum had died of
cancer, so it was a tough start and I missed the bulk of the first semester.
Studying in the US was one big culture shock, but during the course we had to
come up with a business plan and mine was RentYourRocks.com. The idea was to
pull together a collection of timeless, stunning pieces of jewellery for
women to hire for weddings and parties for a fraction of what they'd cost to
buy.
When I came back from California to Norwich, it was like a crash-landing. I
was full of energy for the project. But my dad insisted that I learnt the
old-school route of the business, before we launched RentYourRocks. Then
last year Handbag Hire launched (the same concept but with handbags) and my
dad said that I should get on with ours. It was a case of going to banks and
investors and getting them to agree to lend us several thousand pounds.
There was a lot of toing and froing, but I finally got the approval two days
before a huge international buying fair in America, where my sister and I
pulled together a collection of pieces worth between £2,000 and £18,000 in
five days.
I've slept, breathed and eaten this business for so long, and then suddenly
Jamie and others have become interested in it. That has made me a bit
nervous, but I recognise we have all the old-school ability and none of the
technical knowledge. So I'm now just really eager to get on with it and feel
ready for it. I was really excited about meeting Jamie, it is a bit like
business blind-dating and I was so impressed by his energy and focus. He is
very hands-on, he greets you himself at reception, knows all his team and
makes his own coffee.
Jamie had done quite a bit of homework on RentYourRocks before our meeting,
which meant that we could maximise the time we had rather than go through
the basics. I've since met him again and was much more nervous the second
time, when I realised the size of the task ahead of me, which is quite
daunting. With GlassesDirect, Jamie disrupted the market and changed the way
people could shop. RentYourRocks is doing the same thing for diamond
jewellery: we are making it completely accessible and affordable. I hope to
absorb much from Jamie's learning curve.
Mine will be just as steep but perhaps with his mentoring he can guide me away
from the deadends.
Jamie
I think this business is consumer dynamite and I can see parallels with
Glasses Direct, my online business that sells prescription glasses at a
fraction of high street prices. Sophie's done incredibly well so far, but I
also think that RentYourRocks.com has astounding potential. It caught my eye
right away. I've already put it past potential investors and publicists, and
they're all engaged. It's a niche-market, high-end product, and we need to
widen the market straightaway, so I'd recommend Sophie going global, by
advertising and marketing around the world, so that sales grow as fast as
possible.
We also need to focus on pieces with history, picking up second-hand pieces
worn by celebrities and all of them designer. It's not enough to go for an
unbranded product, because it's all about the one-off experience of wearing
it. Even if it's just one piece worn by Nicole Kidman.
But Sophie also has to have an appetite for risk and realise that this is
going to take up a certain amount of capital - possibly hundreds of
thousands of pounds - otherwise it will take a very long time to build.
The idea is to build a plan over the next month and see how much capital is
required. We'd then find potentially strategic individuals and build a board
around them. It's a difficult market to raise money in, but I think the
network of business angels could get it funded, and by the end of the year
I'd like to see a large amount invested in Sophie's account.
Target for September
To have built a business plan, attracted investors, and closed the round so
that the documents are signed and sealed and the money is in the bank.
Theatre production
Kate Pakenham, producer, The Old Vic, 33, chose Naomi Jones, 29, to help her
to stage The Rovers by Aphra Behn at the Southwark Playhouse
Naomi
My love of theatre was born at secondary school, Saffron Walden County High,
which had a strong drama department. At first I acted, but then I saw Cheek
by Jowl's production of The Duchess of Malfi, and decided to direct it and
never looked back. I carried on directing through Manchester uni, where I
studied drama.
Drama is in the blood, I suppose. My mum's dad was an actor. My mum was also
the head of expressive arts at school. So it was natural for me to go into
theatre. I graduated from Manchester with a first in 2001 and then with an
MA at Goldsmith's College in advanced theatre practice and specialised in
directing. The culmination was staging a production of Bloody Poetry in the
Brockley Jack pub theatre in 2002.
When I was temping at a Volvo garage, I saw the post of assistant director for
the Out of Joint theatre company advertised. It's a touring theatre company
and is directed by Max Stafford-Clark, who was artistic director of the
Royal Court Theatre. I had studied him at school and did a dissertation on
him at university. I thought I'd have no hope, but I got the job and left
last year.
Then I joined with Rebecca Shanks and Natalie Macaluso to form the Looking
Glass House theatre company. We chose The Rover by Aphra Behn, because it's
a play by the first female playwright to have made a living from her
writing, but also because Southwark is perfect for staging it.
It's a Restoration comedy and is about English gentlemen fleeing puritannical
England and touring Italy in search of sex. It's the ultimate stag weekend.
I'm not expecting audience participation, but they will be part of the
action.There are three spaces in Southwark - the bar area, an outside
courtyard and the stage. So we're hoping the actors will mingle with the
audience when they are having a drink in the bar and we'll break down that
tradition of taking our seats with the bell.
Our problem is that we have to raise several thousand pounds to stage it. We
have to find £25,000 if we pay the actors only expenses and no fee. The
Equity minimum would bring our costs up to £45,000, for a three-week run
with a four-week rehearsal, so we cannot afford wages. The first night is in
July and we have to sellout every night to cover costs. We have approached a
lot of people about raising money, and they make the right noises but apart
from PWC giving us £5,000, it's been hard going. We are having one
fundraising party at the Roxy Bar on Thursday, with a raffle and free gin
cocktails, and, thanks to Kate's mentoring, on June 27 we're organising a
clothes-swap party (for tickets and details go to
www.lookingglasshouse.co.uk).
I was nervous about meeting Kate because my experience of producers is that
they can be quite sharp. I thought she might be shocked that we'd chosen
such an ambitious first project. It was completely the opposite. We've met
and spoken on the phone a couple of times and she's been the best a mentor
could be: really supportive, and I've felt more confident about the play and
no longer feel swamped by the problems. As a person she's really positive
and it's a great gift that she's able to pass that on.
My last production of Return to Akenfield at the Seagull Theatre in Lowestoft,
got four stars in The Times, so my dream would be for the same again.
Kate
What jumped out at me in Naomi's application was her idea of merging the
audience with the actors, crossing the boundaries between the stage and
auditorium. It's an ambitious, brave project, but I'm excited to be
involved, because it should be fun.
One of the key areas where Naomi and the team need help is on fundraising.
They have a hefty target to raise in a limited time. In this economic
climate, fundraising is a challenge and requires even more creativity and
energy. My idea for Naomi is to hold a clothes-swap party. The principle is
more about digging out clothes you loved in the shop but have hardly worn
and swapping them. People pay to enter and are invited to donate towards the
production.
Naomi's first priority at the moment is to make a success of The Rover
financially and creatively, as well as using it as an opportunity to get
artistic directors in to see her work so that they can consider her for jobs
in the future. With a short run it's always hard as there are so many calls
on their time. But if anyone can persuade them, I'm sure Naomi can.
Target for September
For Naomi to decide on her next project. It's important both for her and for
Looking Glass House that they keep the momentum up after The Rover and,
hopefully, do something even more ambitious but true to their ethos of
breaking down the boundaries between actor and audience.
Teaching switch
Andrew Gordon-Brown, 41, deputy headmaster of Stonyhurst College, chose
Calver Main, 28, to help to realise his ambition to become a science teacher
Calver
My love of chemistry began in earnest at the University of Glasgow, where I
got a first and then did a master's, funded by GlaxoSmithKline. During my
PhD I worked for GSK for three months on novel ways of making
antidepressants and insomnia drugs.
I was born in 1980 near Aldershot and we moved to Munich until I was 5, when
we moved to the Highlands and lived near Elgin. My father worked in the
offshore oil industry and now works in communications at the United Nations.
I went to school at Gordonstoun and as I really love Scotland, I studied at
Glasgow for my BSC and Masters degrees. After that I worked for a
petrochemical company outside Edinburgh for a few months, before being
approached by Proctor & Gamble, while I was finishing off my PhD last
year. I took the job and moved to Brussels. Nowadays, I work as a process
scientist for P&G. My latest project was working on the formulation of
the Aeriel Excel Gel, which is a squeezy gel in a bottle that you can pour
directly into the washing machine. It's been four years in the pipeline, so
when marketing OK'd it, formulation was needed for tweaking it in the labs
to ensure the quality would still be top notch at the end of the process.
That was my job.
Although I'd married Pamela only 18 months before going to Brussels, she
didn't mind. We met at university in our first year and she now works as an
anaesthologist in Glasgow. We married while I was doing my PhD, and in that
time I spent a year in Germany, so she's quite used to me being away.
However, I would like us to spend more time together and changing my career is
part of that. The other reason I want a change is that I have a passion for
chemistry and I find in my current environment that my knowledge of
chemistry is no longer being challenged, as increasingly I'm taking on more
of a management role. So I thought the best way to re-engage with chemistry
is to immerse myself in the subject and bounce ideas off others, which is
where teaching came in.
I thought about teaching at university, but universities have their own inner
sanctum and there's an element where the teaching gets lost and it's more
about who you know, the grants you can get, etc, which is why I'd like to go
into secondary schools.
I'm in a fantastic position to give young people a passion for chemistry and
I'd love to be able to inspire people.
Obviously, before meeting Andrew I was quite nervous - especially when the
taxi turned up the drive to Stonyhurst, which is really very imposing as it
rises from the mist. But he was very welcoming and I was really happy with
the way he approached the whole idea. When I fired him a whole load of
questions, he could answer every one of them. He also had lots of ideas that
I'd not thought of already, which was interesting. For most of the morning,
I was like a sponge watching Andrew in the classroom and how he interacted
with his students. Although I think he was in a different position than me
when he started out as a teacher, I'm really hoping he'll be able to give me
lots of guidance and encouragement, because the more information I get the
more I am eager to pursue this.
By the end of the year, I hope to be fully on board with the teaching
environment, ie, in a classroom or in a teacher-training course.
Andrew
Calver and I spent the day discussing various routes into teaching today. The
Government's trying to make it really appealing to become a teacher, so
there are lots of options - some of which are employment based and others
which are based on full-time study.
Without my intervention he's already developed his thinking over how to make
his career switch and clearly he does have a huge ability and passion for
chemistry, which is half the battle to be an excellent teacher. What I think
he enjoyed most at Stonyhurst was seeing me as a practitioner in the
classroom and teaching economics to 13 sixth-formers. It was good because he
realised that lessons don't have to be a chalk-and-talk experience. In fact,
I just wrote two sentences on the board in the entire session and spent a
lot of time discussing the concepts with the pupils.
The road ahead now for Calver involves exploring the different training routes
that he could go down. When I switched from the City to teaching at Radley,
I went down the on-the-job route to qualified-teacher status in my fourth
year.
Although private schools don't demand that you qualify as a teacher, there's
no doubt that I benefited from that. It's a question of getting your head
round the standards required by Government. I also felt it would potentially
be another string to my bow and open up opportunities in future, even if
there was no pressure on me to do so.
Obviously I hope to make Calver more aware of the options, but also to be a
sounding-board on the pros and cons, as well as giving him advice on any job
offers, which is ultimately what we're aiming at.
Target for September
Clearly meeting and exceeding the expectations of a PGCE training course at
the University of Strathclyde or, if miracles are happening, training on the
job in an excellent school in the UK .
Writing
Adele Parks, 40, author, chose Jane Monk, 46, to help her write an historical
romantic novel set in the Netherlands
Jane
I've always written. I wrote my first poem when I was 8 and at 9 decided that
this was something I would always do. I had a big noisy family, so writing
was a place for me to go, a refuge.
I was born and brought up in Bridlington, Yorkshire. I left school just before
I turned 16 and worked as an apprentice chef at Blenheim Palace in
Oxfordshire. The head chef, Michael Adams, taught me what it meant to work
at something. In the first shooting season, I remember working more than 60
hours a week and then studying for my City and Guild certificate at
weekends. It was really hard, but I had to do it: I was in love with food.
By the time I was 19, I was working as the head chef for Lord Cowdray at
Cowdray Park. But I wanted adventure, so after a few years I quit and joined
the Merchant Navy as head steward and cook. As far as I know, I'm still the
first woman to work in the British Merchant Navy in the North Sea in a
non-federated ship. I didn't realise what a big deal it was till I was
there. I'd always wanted to go to sea and remember being very upset as a
little girl, when I heard that I couldn't join the Navy. I spent six months
in the North Sea and knew no fear.
At 22 I left the Navy and moved to New York, to work as a head party chef.
Then I lived in London and had a dinner party business. In 1994, I moved to
Holland after getting an A-plus in English Literature A level and decided to
write a novel. The first of four, none of which has been published.
I lived in the Netherlands for about ten years. I cooked there too, but I also
hung around university libraries a lot, because I love history and it was
there that I stumbled across the story of this Dutch heroine. That was in
1995.
I put it on the back-burner, thinking I might come back to it. But it took a
lot of confidence to research it and I found that courage only halfway
through my Open University BA Hons degree in arts and humanities, when I had
to research the main character as part of a creative writing module. With
the OU behind me, I was able to talk to professors about my heroine.
Over the past four years, I've talked to three professors from different
disciplines, all abroad. They've all been very helpful, as have local
historical associations, pubs and societies. I started my first draft of the
novel in January 2008 and it took a year to write. It's about 140,000 words
long.
I write from 8am to 1pm every day, except Sundays. Then I also write two or
three afternoons a week for a couple of hours. Characterisation is my weak
point, and where I hope that Adele will be able to help me most.
My first draft read like a history textbook. I need to humanise the characters
and make them real. Adele's already given me some fantastic pointers about
how to make them three dimensional: like writing a list of their favourite
clothes, hats and relationships with their parents, so that I have them
clear in my mind and know how they will react to a situation.
I'm hoping to have it finished by the summer. I listen to everything that
Adele tells me, because she's got the experience and she's been so nice. I
really feel this is the best opportunity any aspiring writer can have. She's
my new god.
Adele
My first impression of Jane came from the pitch. The story was compelling and
I thought I'd like to read more of it. She didn't tell me any personal
details, which are irrelevant and, most importantly, she said “I'm in love
with my book”.
When I saw that I thought that she'd understood what it was to be an author.
It was a leap of faith, because I had no idea about her writing, but whereas
a lot of pitches sounded good, many hadn't put a single word to paper. Jane,
on the other hand, had written four novels and this one was 140,000 words
long.
The great thing too, is that Jane's writing in a genre that I feel comfortable
with. Others approached me with crime thriller or fiction or horror-type
stories, none of which I felt able to comment intelligently on.
Our first meeting was a chat on the phone a month ago. I asked Jane to send me
her work and she sent the whole book, with a note telling me what she
thought was wrong with it. We've highlighted characterisation, but we'll
also be looking at structure and drama. It's incredibly well-researched, so
all we need to do now is to turn it into a compelling page-turner - and I
believe that Jane's writing is strong enough for that.
Her attitude is also very sensible about what we can achieve - because, unlike
those who approached me and said they'd like a contract or to be on the
bestseller list, she just wants to get the best possible text. A publisher
would be great, but we can't promise anything.
Target for September
Our target will be for Jane to have completed a draft that we are happy to
present to agents.
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