Our Speakers

Nikki Sharpe

Nikki Sharpe is a personal injuries lawyer and founder of social enterprise Youth Can Achieve. Recently, she was also named national “Extraordinary Woman of the Year 2010.”

When Nikki tells her story, it is so compelling, people have to listen – and young people are challenged to make changes and take action. Nikki may now be a high profile personal injuries lawyer, but she can empathise in a very special way with those she has vowed to help. She has suffered so many disadvantages in her life, Nikki makes people realise that if she can achieve against the odds, then so could they.

Abandoned at a few weeks old by her mother, taken into care only to be terribly neglected and physically abused. Returned by social workers to a children’s home, an adoption that turned sour and bullied just because of the colour of her skin. A childhood spent hearing and believing that she was worthless and would never amount to anything.

Nikki left school with some CSEs but determined to pull herself together, she took a secretarial course, then left home at 16 with £10 in her pocket, some clothes and a quilt to live with her adoptive sister in Manchester.

A job as a filing clerk with law firm Thompson’s followed and when the firm opened an office in Sheffield, Nikki moved to the city as a copy typist. Happy in her work, Nikki started to tackle the problems of her past, seeking counselling and also her real parents and half-sister. Discovering and forgiving her parents gave her both understanding and closure.

As she got more involved with legal work, she realised she did have a burning ambition after all – to help other people. It fuelled her to push for promotion and eventually to reach for the thing she had never dared to dream of – becoming a solicitor. Thompson’s took a chance on supporting Nikki through a grueling five years of part time study and a year off work to complete her final qualifications at Sheffield University.

Working with the police a couple of years ago to help vulnerable and marginalised young people turn their lives round was the inspiration behind Youth Can Achieve. She realised she wanted to help youngsters overcome the hardships life can deal them and is now on a mission to boost the confidence and dreams of every young person she can reach out to. Nikki shows them how they can take charge of their lives and build a better future, no matter how desperate their situation and she’ll leave no stone unturned in order to succeed!

She has created a social enterprise which holds out a helping hand to young people who need it using a holistic approach. Youth Can Achieve exists to help disadvantaged and disaffected, vulnerable 10 to 30 year-olds with practical support, knowledge and information to nurture ambition and inspire positive life change.

Nikki is now a regular speaker in the media, schools and for the police. She hosts her own weekly inspiration show on local radio and mentors the hardest to reach young people in care, work for which Nikki was invited to 10 Downing Street to meet Sarah Brown.

Featured several times on TV for the Big Sleep Out and her Extraordinary Women Award, Nikki champions issues surrounding child poverty at a national level and locally is a member of the Sheffield Runaway Action Group. Only recently, Nikki was nominated for another award, Yorkshire Women of Achievement in Education and became a national advocate and speaker for the NSPCC in the same month.

For more information about becoming involved with Youth Can Achieve as a mentor, speaker or sponsor, please contact founder Nikki Sharpe, associate solicitor at Thompsons Solicitors.

Direct dial: 0114 270 3311 Mobile: 07980 239 061

E-mail: NikkiSharpe@Thompsons.law.co.uk

Website www.youthcanachieve.co.uk

Tricia Stewart

Tricia Stewart was born in Sunderland on 11th February 1949. She trained as a diagnostic radiographer, moving to Skipton in Yorkshire in February 1973, with her husband Ian, who worked for Ilford in the x-ray division. Tricia worked at Airedale General Hospital, leaving in 1976 to have daughter Lizzi. Her son, Micky was born in 1978.

After living in Skipton for 10 years, they moved into a small village of Cracoe in the Yorkshire Dales. On arrival in Cracoe, a neighbour, Angela Baker invited her to join the WI, telling her that the locals would think she was funny if she didn’t join.

So Tricia joined Rylestone & District WI in 1985 and became great friends with Angela. She was an active member, entering WI competitions (sometimes gaining high marks) and serving as Treasurer for 2 years.

In 1997 Tricia and Ian set up a company, TKI Medical, together selling medical educational software to Universities and hospitals. In February 1998 John Baker, Angela’s husband, was diagnosed with non Hodgkins Lymphoma.

A few years earlier Tricia thought it would be really amusing to do an alternative version of the traditional WI calendar, which usually featured pictures of hills, sheep and village greens. It was a joke for all that time, until touched by the serious illness of a friend; they wanted to raise money for research into blood related cancers. John knew about the calendar and thought it was a very amusing idea, but said they would never do it. When John died in July 1998, Tricia determined to go ahead with the calendar in memory of John and to raise funds for Leukaemia research. Eleven women aged between 45 and 65 were involved in the calendar. There was no difficulties recruiting models because they were all friends of John and Angela’s.

The Alternative WI Calendar was launched in April 1999. Tricia’s name and number went out with the press releases and she was on three phones for weeks! For Tricia, the calendar was like running another business; using the skills she had learnt form running the office of TKI Medical.

The media coverage was huge. The story was in the nationals every day for 3 weeks. They modelled at the Savoy in London fashion week, were voted Women of the Year, baked a spotted dick on Thames TV and took calendars to the palace for the Queen and the Queen Mother. Oldie magazine awarded them “The Oldie Exposure of the Year”.

In 1999, the calendar sold 88,000 copies in the U.K. The calendar proved inspirational and touched people’s hearts. It changed the image of the WI forever, the perception of the older woman and sold thousands of copies. People admired their courage.

A year later the calendar was published in America, selling a further 240,000 copies, promoted by two tours of the US and in 2001 Tricia’s book “Calendar Girl” was published by Pan Macmillan.
In 2004 her book “The Calendar Girl’s Story” was published and has been reprinted many times and translated into different languages including Japanese. This was followed by the 2007 calendar which was published in April 2006.

The aim had been to raise £5,000 for LRF and to have a calendar dedicated to John’s memory. The effect of the calendar was expected to last 3 weeks, but 5 years on it has raised nearly a million pounds for LRF.

In September 2003, the blockbusting film “Calendar Girls” based on the story of the Alternative WI Calendar, was premiered at the Odeon, Leicester Square. In the film, Tricia’s character was played by Helen Mirren. June 2003 saw the launch of a second calendar featuring the 6 actresses from the film and the six original WI members.

The stage version hit the West End on the 4th April 2009 at the Noel Coward Theatre with Anita Dobson who has taken over playing Tricia from Lynda Bellingham and it is playing to full house every night.

Tricia is an incredibly inspirational, motivating and amusing speaker is constantly being booked by audiences keen to hear her story and she undertakes in excess of 100 speaking engagements each year to clients as diverse as South Wales Police, Institute of Health Management, Derby & District Law Society, P&O. North West Practice Nurse Association, Rotary International, Chambers of Commerce, Business Links as well as numerous Ladies Luncheon Clubs and WI Federations.

The latest, and allegedly last, 2010 Calendar was launched in May 2009 and has, once again, taken the world by storm.

Alison Thompson

Alison is Business Leader – Integration and Change at Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) and is the winner of our Extraordinary Organisational Success award in 2010.

She was nominated by Neville Richardson, Group Chief Executive at CFS who described her as “an inspirational role model, Alison is never fazed by what she has to take on.  She has tackled incredible business challenges, achieved several ‘firsts’ including first woman business leader, embraced new opportunities and had the integrity to say ‘no’ when a move wasn’t right for her or the business.”

She has transitioned from junior clerk to leader of a £300 million integration programme in the same business, whilst remaining true to her values – ambitious for the business first and herself second, happy to take the personal success that comes from business success.

Alison is the youngest of eight children raised by a single mum and lives in the market town where she was born, although her work takes her across the UK and overseas. Her positivity is anchored in her 22-year marriage to Robert and her love for her 18-year-old son Luke.

She rejoices in supporting others and remains eager and willing to learn while mentoring colleagues and supporting people development programmes.

A lack of formal professional qualifications has been no handicap.  Alison jokes that she wants the letters WM after her name – for Working Mum.

Adele Parks

Adele Parks was born in Teesside, NE England, in 1969. She enjoyed a traditional 1970’s childhood, watching too much TV and eating convenience food. Things were simply easier then. Since graduating from Leicester University, where she studied English Language and Literature, Adele has worked in advertising and as a management consultant. In 2010 she was awarded an honorary doctorate of Letters from Teesside University.

Adele always dreamed of being a writer and her first novel – Playing Away – was published in 2000; that year the Evening Standard identified Adele as one of London’s ‘Twenty Faces to Watch’.

The ES was correct. Prolific, Adele has proven to be one of our most-loved and biggest-selling women’s fiction writers in the UK, she’s sold one and a half million copies of her work in the UK alone but is also translated into 25 different languages. She’s published ten novels in ten years, all of which have been Times Top Ten bestsellers. Adele will talk about her latest novel Men I’ve Loved Before which examines those undeniable, lasting issues that interest us all. She scrutinizes our theories of love, motherhood and infidelity with honesty and humour. She is well respected for examining the thorny issues of the lives we lead today with her trademark wit and her up-front, tell-it-as-it-is style.

Two of her novels (Playing Away and Game Over) are currently been developed as screen scripts. She writes numerous articles and short stories for national magazines and newspapers and often appears on radio and TV talking about her work and related matters.

Adele is passionate in her belief that reading is a basic right. Since 2006 Adele has been heavily involved with World Book Day. In 2008 Adele wrote a Quick Read, Happy Families as part of the celebrations of World Book Day, which went on to win Quick Read Learners’ Favourite Award, as voted for by the public. Adele has worked with The Literary Trust in an effort to apply pressure on political parties and individual MPs to adopt effective literacy policies and to place greater importance on literacy as part of their manifestos. Adele is the Costa Novel Award judge for 2010.

Adele has spent her adult life in Italy, Botswana, Leicester and London, but now lives very happily in Guildford, with her husband and son. She is a trustee of Guildford Book Festival.