Get to know the team

Get to know the team!

You've met Charlotte, Andrew and even myself, but do you know how many more members the team has?

Backstage of a production is just as important as the people on stage/set. Even if you’re not an actor like myself, you will know this to be true. 

In any good team, the constant is a good core. This stands for big corporations, small businesses and even families! The cogwheels that make it all go forward, even if the outside can’t see it all the time, are so important.

So I decided to try something a bit different, and introduce you the 2 newest members of our Inkpact team via interviewing them! We are now 5 core team members, look at that! You can listen to the interview, recorded on the 24th July, and if you feel like you want to know something more about our lovely Domizia Di Maggio and Jeannine Rafferty, well, do let me know!

I had a blast talking to them and recording this. 

I know there are a few sound issues, as we didn’t record with professional microphones and also internet connections that day were a bit dodgy for some reason, but you can still understand every word and get a feel for not only the job roles but the wonderful women they both are.

Hope you enjoy!

Tania, Community Manager

Being a mum at Inkpact, by Nicola Willoughby

Being a mum at Inkpact

How I balance being a mum with writing and reviewing for inkpact! - by Nicola Willoughby

I started writing for Inkpact in Autumn 2017. My little girl had just turned one and I’d seen a post on Facebook where someone was asking how they could make a living out of their lovely handwriting, and in the replies, someone had recommended Inkpact. I decided to have a look online, applied, and that was that! I was a writer.

In those early days, the jobs were very different – I remember my first job was 10 A4 letters which seemed to be so long and have so many words – nothing like the jobs of today with thousands of cards to write!

I found it quite difficult at first to find a good time to write – having a small person to entertain and the risk of having freshly written letters spoilt took up most of my day! I also worked 4 days a week as a radiographer in our local NHS hospital. Eventually I started writing when she had her nap, and in the evenings as she went to bed. I once read a post on the Scribe Tribe that a mum sat in the car writing whilst her little ones slept, but I bow down to that mum, as I could never quite manage to get the hang of that skill!

In 2018, I fell pregnant again. I wrote throughout my pregnancy until December when I found my bump was just too big to carry on writing comfortably! My twin girls were born in January 2019 and the fun began.

I picked up the writing again in June with the arrival of the WaterBabies campaign and continued to pick up jobs here and there, still writing during the girls’ naps and in the evenings – made slightly more difficult with having 3 little girls under the age of 3!

I have always loved reading, and found that I pick up spelling and grammatical errors in books and written works, and always fancied myself as a bit of a proofreader! When the opportunity arose to become part of the Inkpact QA team in early 2020, I was so pleased! Balancing the quality checking in life is much easier than I thought and I just love being part of team ‘Reviewing Army’!

Although it can be hard at times to find a good balance between my family, work and Inkpact, I do enjoy the challenge. I still love posting my handwritten letters and imagining the happiness that the recipient feels. I’m so pleased I’m a part of this lovely company 😊

Nicola Willoughby - Scribe Tribe, Reviewer

What not to do during a pandemic

What not to do during a pandemic

From the 18th to the 24th of May it’s Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK. And what a time to remind ourselves to check up on our mental health!

In the midst of a pandemic we are surrounded by rules, and expectations we sometimes have no idea where they came from or even who set them.

We know, or at least are trying to understand, government guidelines. We stayed at home. We washed our hands. We had the unbelievable gift of time bestowed upon (most of) us. But what does all that mean in reality?

And then, the “outside” expectations. Social media connecting us all, and making us all feel so incredibly useless and like we’re failing. And keeping us so busy all the time, most of us are not processing our feelings and thoughts about the state of the world.

How? Well, read on…

Early on, it started with all these online free classes that started to take place. Gym owners, PTs, dancers, gym aficionados, all left out of jobs, decided to take their gifts online, and a new form of exercise came to be: Zoom classes and Instagram lives of all sorts. From Yoga to HIIT, boxing and ballet, you name it! And we enrolled them all.

Then came the bread-making. It turns out sourdough is not that hard to bake, and there’s something lovely about eating bread you made yourself. Not to speak of the wonders of watching dough rise. Yep, we have time, don’t we? Anything but staying alone with our thoughts.

Soon after, haircuts, new gardening skills, books checked out of the to-read lists (even if we can’t remember the storyline all that well), and creative writing. All the plays, poems, stories, we felt we needed to start and perhaps didn’t really want to finish. I mean, art comes from the heart, and that little honey is a bit mangled right now.

Not to mention, we are probably feeling like we watched ALL of Netflix by now.

And still… at the end of the day, we are still left feeling overwhelmed, afraid and unbalanced. We have not processed all of this. And you know what? That is ALRIGHT!

The sooner you realise you have NOTHING to prove to anyone, not now, not when the pandemic is over, the better it is for you and your mental health.

So, don’t feel like you need to declutter your closet and be all Marie Kondo. Or learn a new language, read all the books you own plus the ones you can afford to get delivered. Or write a novel. Also, and this may come as a shock to you, you don’t need to participate in yet another Zoom quiz night!

You can take things at your pace. You can read, if you feel like it, or listen to some amazing audiobooks if you can’t concentrate on the pages, or even, ditch the book and try meditating for the first time in over 50 years of living (there are some gorgeous apps and Youtube videos to help you get started).

You can have a cup of tea by the window, getting some sun (and vitamin D! Just please, wear sunscreen. Seriously, I could do a whole other post on how much you ALWAYS need sunscreen!), listen to your favourite song paying attention to instruments you may not even know are there (I recently found a little cymbal in Bohemian Rapsody I SWEAR has never been there before) or you can simply call your mom and have a nice chat or share recipes and funny stories from growing up.

Just take time. To be with who you choose to be with. To be with you. To be.

And now that we are slowly easing out into some sort of normalcy, please remember to check in on anxiety levels. More people outside can be a trigger, and a concern and we should all, as much as possible, still be inside. I won’t stop hammering this: it’s ok to not be as productive as you think everyone else is being. It’s ok to take things at your own pace. As the famous saying goes: You do you, boo.

And just as a closer, and to remind you to be forgiving and keep your mental health in check, here’s some advice I picked up from this article:

  1. Asking for help isn’t weakness
  2. Forgive yourself
  3. Hard work isn’t a cure
  4. Processing takes time
  5. Shame doesn’t get the final word
  6. We’re ALL adjusting

We are all adjusting. We are all together. We all are.

Tania, Community Manager

Remedial Handwriting, by Yvonne Hedges

JustWrite classroom a

Just Write - Remedial Handwriting, by Yvonne Hedges

Our first guest blog post comes from one of our own Scribes. And it's all about Remedial Writing. If you want to know more about Yvonne's school, read below or head to http://www.justwritenow.co.uk.

I am a SEN teacher of 25+ years, now specialising in helping people improve their handwriting. I am qualified to teach handwriting specifically through the National Handwriting Association and the Helen Arkell Centre for Dyslexia.

So what do I do and why? Well, I am passionate about handwriting – that is my motivation. Handwriting is a life skill. I find those most in need tend to be children struggling with schoolwork but equally, adults and professionals like doctors have also benefitted from my support and help.

In 2011, I decided to leave school and become a private handwriting tutor, founding Just Write to focus exclusively on handwriting. With those tutoring the normal subjects, handwriting is often offered as a 5 minute add-on at the end of a lesson, if requested. This is just not good enough. In spite of technology, school work is still centred around pen and paper, because it is still the most appropriate medium for young minds to use to commit their thoughts, ideas and creativity, which can then immediately be shared. Without the ability to express themselves in writing, they can become frustrated, lose confidence and ultimately fail to realise their full potential. School life marches on and you keep up or fall behind. This is what I saw happening and decided to do something about it.

I love teaching but found during my career that whilst writing is one of the foundations of a good education, it is rarely given the curriculum time it deserves; and different schools never have the same standards or teach the same style of handwriting. There is lack of time, knowledge and human resources. We now live in a world that has lots of left- handed writers, so no longer should this be a problem as there are so many writing tools to help them. Definitely no longer smudging of their writing as was the common belief!  It is no wonder then that many schoolchildren fail to achieve a reasonable style and speed, and uncorrected bad habits and poor letter formation follows them into adulthood. How many of your friends and relatives have you heard saying that their handwriting is awful when the subject is raised? How many of them can remember being taught writing skills? I am sure you will have a variety of answers which will not be consistent between them.

The good news is that handwriting can be improved whatever your age. The trick is not to think of it as a finite skill that you are either good at or not, like maths! Handwriting is a skill like playing a musical instrument.  To become good at it requires 2 things

1. a good understanding of technique and 2. the desire to practice and teach the hand muscles how to work!

Technique

This is about how you sit, hold your pencil, position your paper, how your writing area is lit and how much you press on the paper whilst writing. These are all correctable and will naturally give you the best opportunity to form letters and sentences in a legible and consistent style. In other words, all the practical things that will support a good practice writing session.

Practice

This is more complex. If we try really hard, we can often write sentences very slowly, but beautifully! What is required ultimately, is for us to be able to write beautifully, legibly and fast!

If you don’t already play the piano, imagine putting your hands and fingers onto the keys for the first time. There are a lot of questions. What does each note sound like? Which finger plays each note? How do you translate a piece of music on paper to the keys on the keyboard?  How is it possible to stretch your fingers to cover an octave or more with one hand?  How can your fingers hit the correct note every time, without fail?

Practice in this context is the activity of repetitive movement and applies equally to handwriting as it does to playing a musical instrument. With practice, you are creating ‘muscle memory’. That is, the muscles in your hands and fingers learn the movements and positions required to play a sequence of notes or to write a sequence of letters. However, humans are inherently lazy and if we can find a quicker way of doing this which doesn’t make your muscles ache as much, or require as much stretching or effort, we will do it. If the end result is OK rather than beautiful, we may be happy with that.

This is how bad habits are formed and they become your muscle memory. With handwriting, the difficulty comes when you try to read your ‘quick’ writing sometime later, or someone else does – like a teacher reading homework, or a nurse reading a Doctor’s notes. It might have been fully understandable when it was written, but not at some time later. University lecture notes, as an example, spring to mind here!

JustWrite classroom aRemedial handwriting lessons with the right techniques reset the hand’s muscle memory to recover the situation by practising handwriting using the basic principles outlined above, in a motivational way. There is a crossover between some elements of occupational health and an individual’s level of fine motor skills that are addressed on an individual basis.

By this, I mean trying to remedy this yourself by writing “The quick brown fox…” etc. over and over again might have some benefit, but it is pretty repetitive and boring and misses out on techniques that underpin good handwriting. Getting children to do this can create a resistance to handwriting which is counterproductive and takes time and patience to rebuild their confidence.

In my experience, it is only a very few focussed people whose handwriting will improve through online exercises and printable sheets, without having prior knowledge of how the elements of physiology and psychology combine to achieve better handwriting. Most end up with an achy wrist, and convince themselves there isn’t really much wrong with their handwriting after all! As a teacher, I incorporate different activities and games as well as physical exercises into lessons to achieve the muscle changes required without the obvious but boring repetitive writing tasks, (or achy wrists!), making practice in between more enjoyable too. In just the same way, a piano teacher will deliver greater benefit over a shorter period of time than a self-learner can.

My success as a handwriting teacher is based on a one-to-one relationship with the student with a variety of tasks and exercises to keep interest and practice alive! I enjoy handwriting so much and love to see the written word, I even write as a Scribe for Inkpact 😊 

Yvonne Hedges - Scribe Tribe, Super Scribe

Why Bullet Journaling is not for me

Why Bullet Journaling is not for me

I have now started this organisation method 3 times. 3!!! And "gave up" a grand total of said 3 times (but actually it feels like about 857). So now I think it's time to rest my colourful pens, retire my Leuchtturm diary and call it day. And this is why.

When I roam the interwebs I always fawn a bit at beautiful layouts, spreads and overall talent from most Bullet Journals (or Creative Journals). I have pages saved on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook and even Youtube videos of gorgeously gifted and quill genius people. And I know, I know! You have to make the BJ work for you, mould it to your needs and wants, and just have a functional diary management, brain dump thing that is yours. No need to photograph and share anything! But I just couldn’t even make that!

Let’s start from the top, and admit (as I believe most of us) I grew up with an almost unhealthy obsession with stationery. The best time of the year was end of August, because all the supermarkets would be filled with rows and rows of school supplies and I’d just go crazy! I mean, as crazy as my mom’s bank would allow in practical terms, but theoretically and spiritually I was in heaven!

Most pretty notebooks would remain untouched -they were just too pretty to be written on – but that didn’t keep me from adding them to my Christmas and Birthday lists, to which my family obliged and my collection grew! And I think that’s where the problem started. So many untouched books. I didn’t learn HOW to make them mine. They were just like a piece of artwork, to be seen and not touched.

Things got a bit worst when after taking one of them and using it as a journal for years (I mean, years!!!) my car was mugged and they took my beloved guitar and backpack which, alongside many other valuable (some only emotionally, but nonetheless valuable) items like my grandmother’s rosary or one of my mother’s rings, had said diary, and I just felt so violated, like some stranger would know all of my hearts desires, emotions and soul unburdens (realistically I know they just dumped it somewhere and kept only what they could make money out of…).

So maimed-Tania-sharing-time over, I think both these experiences contributed for my inability to keep an actual BJ! That and the fact I have some sort of undiagnosed mild attention deficit disorder, combined with an actresses’ impossible-to-pin-down-actual-dates-until-the-actual-date but also have a rehearsal process and tour starting in x months schedule.

So, if only for now, I have a regular diary. And a half used Leuchtturm notebook for sporadic brain dumps. None of which I would actually photograph and share online on a pretty flat lay. But mine, and they kinda work.

Do you use the Bullet Journal method? Are you interested in starting one? 

Tania, Community Manager

Being a Scribe

Being a Scribe

For the first proper blog post I thought I'd speak a bit about what it is to be a Scribe, and why we choose to be part of this community. I was inspired by a Facebook post on our group, where I asked the question and was blown away with the replies. I then, of course, also thought of my own reasons, and now I'm just compiling all these feelings into a stream of words. I hope you feel inspired and proud to belong to the Scribe Tribe after reading this!​

When I came across Inkpact, back at the end of 2016, I could not believe my luck: someone would actually pay me to hand write notes, cards and letters!? How could that be a thing??? Sign me up!

I submitted my sample and waited. I could say I even resorted to biting my nails, but I do that even when not waiting for important news, so you’ll have to take my word for it when I say I was anxiously awaiting the result of my application.

My yes soon came (talk about good news to begin 2017 with) and with it the lovely writer pack with my own new fountain pen and light pad! I loved all of it and when my first job came along I gladly started to write.

Now, my first job was super stressful, don’t get me wrong! An A4 letter jam-packed with information and I admit, I stayed up until almost 3am the night before my deadline to finish the job. This could’ve been reason enough for me to just call it a day and quit. Believe me, you mess with my sleep and I’ll resent you for life! (Well, maybe not for life, but I’ll certainly almost growl at you the following day).

But something made me stay. I couldn’t pin point what it was until my second job came along. Not only my personal joy in writing, the almost egotistical joy of seeing my pretty hand writing embellish a card (oh, Tania, cut it out! So full of yourself!!!), but also the message, the knowing someone would smile when they’d receive the acceptance card, or feel motivated to work harder, when the beautiful copy of the rejection messages inspired instead of demotivate them. I was hooked. That was it! I was a writer. I was a Scribe.

I started to dig deeper into the company, I met Charlotte, Andrew, and the office team. I enjoyed the banter and ease of the company. The inspiration of pursuing a passion until you succeed. 

I was lucky enough to start working in the office early/mid 2018 and by the end of the year I was also given the chance to manage the actual community. And that’s when I started to meet more of the other Scribes. And man, are we a great bunch! We have moms, freelancers, lovers of Nature, sippers of tea, curious, ingenious, smart and silly and overall “good eggs” everywhere you look! And I am so happy to be part of this group.

As for why YOU are a Scribe, well, I asked, and you all pointed out the obvious love for fountain pens, stationery and beautiful handwriting, the inspirational CEO (gooooo Charlotte!), the opportunities and passions, the challenges, the collaborations with charities, the freedom to work from home and on your own time, the talented people all around, and most importantly, the sense of community. Anything else I missed or you’d like to add? Leave a comment!

So now, our path continues, and we can continue to go on, not hand in hand, but hand in pen. Together. Being part of the Scribe Tribe.

Tania, Community Manager