 Hi everybody from Wellington, New Zealand. I wanted to take you through the creation that is here behind me. I was invited over here from the Irish Embassy in Wellington and the purpose was to facilitate a CREENU. Now a CREENU is the Irish word for meeting or gathering and particularly what they wanted to do was to bring all of the groups from community groups and representatives of business network and cultural groups etc. Meeting everybody together and to have a conversation around what the future relationship between Ireland and New Zealand from the ground up was going to look like. And it was an absolute masterclass in terms of how they delivered it. It was just really really brilliant and my role became so easy because of the great work that they did. So I wanted just to first of all reflect on a couple of things that they did really well because lots of us have away days or we have brainstorming days with our teams etc. And just a couple of things that they did before I came along was really helpful so I just wanted to share those with you first. Number one they had facilitators from the groups managing the conversations. So therefore at the tables around the room there was ten tables around the room and we had about a hundred people. So therefore the facilitators each had the table level discussions and then they were all fed into the overall discussion which I then as I mentioned I was facilitating at that point. Second thing we had a briefing today with every one of the yesterday sorry with everybody of those facilitators so that everybody knew what they were doing. Everybody was on message. I took them through exactly the logistics of the day. I told them about what each of the conversations and the workshops were going to entail. We answered all the questions. We shared concerns openly and anybody that wasn't familiar with doing so we went through the key things that you do need to do in order to facilitate a balanced and yet perspective conversation. So we did all of that which was really really great. And of course the other thing look this is so basic but so important and needs to be done all the time is that we knew what we wanted. There were three key areas the shared legacy. Secondly the shared vision for what they wanted to look at in the future. And then the third thing was the action plan accordingly. So how did the relationship between Ireland and New Zealand be in the past? How does it want to look in the future? What exactly does that look like and what's the action plan to getting there? Three workshops and we also had a fabulous guest speaker along the way. Complete clarity from the very beginning each session built on the other one and then we got to the end point. Speaking of which the end point was focused on not just the outputs because they were key and important but the actual inputs in the process of having the conversation. There was value in that as well. And that was something that lots and lots of people spoke about was the value of having the time and the space and again the facilitation the direction about having an effective conversation. But particularly just I just want to mention the outputs. One of them is behind me, right? So what they what they did. So what the Friends of Ireland particularly pioneered by the Irish Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand. What they did was they asked an illustrator to graphically illustrate all of the things and the conversations that came out of today. Secondly, we enabled each group. And that particularly was my job. We enabled each group to share their insights in two ways. OK, one was digitally. So we had a tool in the background. Now, it wasn't to be the be all and end all. It was to capture insights when people were ready to share them from whoever wanted to share them in whatever language that they wanted to do so. So we had that going on in the background and that that was running right throughout the day and we have a report now to put together that we can share with everybody with those insights. The other thing we did then was that again, this was my job was to go around to each of the tables and to get a sense of what people felt about certain around each of the three workshops accordingly. So we had verbal output, digital written output. And also then we had visual output here behind me so that therefore people could express what they needed to express at at their level. What I mean by level is wherever they were comfortable, maybe people prefer to write, maybe people prefer to talk, maybe people prefer to speak in front of the group. And maybe it was like this behind here, which was which was brilliant. Now, let me now take you through this because there's a lot of value here. One of the things that I thought was particularly interesting to this audience, right, to you and me who are in business and in career development all the time is right over here, which is all about the land of opportunity that that New Zealand is represented with. So we asked the question here, which is, are we reaching our potential in New Zealand? And that would be of the business community. The Irish business community who might be travelling in or, of course, for New Zealand businesses, travelling to Ireland, to the European Union, to anywhere, of course, where we represent a touch point. And not just that would levering the connections that are there through existing business networks, Irish and otherwise. So it was very much a focus around the opportunity presented by the Kiwi economy, which is quite, which is very strong. I have to say their economic growth is strong. Their unemployment is lower than in Ireland. Very focused on particular sectors, particularly agriculture, innovation within agriculture, half of the working population here in Wellington work for the government. So it's a lot around public administration and so on like that. And New Zealand was the first country to give women the vote. So particularly on Saint Brigid's Day, who is the patron, the female patron, the centre of Ireland, that was that was mentioned and like that idea, too. And so the range of different things like that around the around the land of opportunity, another point that came up actually was about dual nature, OK? So over here, the question was, am I Irish or am I Kiwi? Because if you live in New Zealand for 15 years and you have grown up in Ireland, or again, this this this relates to lots of people is that who are you? Are you one? Are you the other? Are you both? You know, and the thing is, is that can I just touch on this from from a different angle is that sometimes people say, if I move job, do I move part of my identity? And other people can say if I move sector or if I move industry or profession and, you know, a lot of the time there is crossover about when we when we evolve our identity, because I was solely before Susan, the person who delivered training and finance, Susan, who spoke about the economy, Susan, who gave training and entrepreneurship in and facilitated discussions around that. And then after that, then when we brought in savvy teens and all the work that we do around young people, then, of course, my personal brand or my identity and, of course, that of the company was then evolving. So then how do you present yourself and how does that how does that evolve? And now, of course, we've got the peer learning angle as well, which is the new one that we're constantly evolving within the business to research. So there's a lot of crossover here between the conversations that were had and about like, who am I? And of course, the other thing is that maybe I'm different things to different people in different in different environments. Another thing was up here all around technology, a lot of conversation around technology, having a central hub to bring people and events and Intel together, connecting people to people, whether it is through video calls or whether it is through Facebook Live, certainly I lever that myself because I run a Facebook Live around the Irish economy on on Facebook and now soon to be on Instagram Live as well for all of the for all teachers and students of economics, because the textbook that we wrote that was just published and put into schools, the second textbook that we wrote, it's called Positive Economics for the Irish Economic syllabus and it's it's printed. So therefore it can easily go out of date with the macroeconomic discussions, so therefore we do a monthly Facebook Live so that then people can keep up to date on the dynamic nature of the economy. So this was also a point that was mentioned here so many times. Oh, my God, God, so many times we spoke about relationships just everywhere, right? But particularly here, a place for people to be to be connected came up so often. Relationships are everything, but I just want to touch on a couple of things to do with Ireland and New Zealand. It's a brilliant pivotal point because there's 13 hours time difference right now, so therefore if you're servicing a 24 hour market, how easily it could be done if you have a person both sides of the world at exactly opposite points. So that's a way in which by working together and managing relationships there, it can work really well. Also, of course, is because one's business hours is different to another. It can create a window of opportunity and distance again so that then work can be done or work could be happening while one is sleeping, the other is waking and so on like that. But the other thing is I presented this idea is that we're all Venn diagrams, right? So right now on this side of my Venn diagram that I'm standing in is that I am a business person on this side of this Venn diagram. I am somebody who's involved and loved to be involved with the global Irish community. Then I have another circle around me up here, which is that I'm part of CFA Ireland, Church of Financial Analyst. It's my profession society. And then there's another circle around me, which is that I'm an author. And we all have those. And we often may not think about how can we leverage all of those working together? We also had a youth council, so a group of people who are going to shape how they see this relationship forming when they're out in the workforce, when they're travelling, when they have got their OE, their overseas experience so that then we can continually have reverse mentoring going on within within the crew in the future. And also what was just right, it's just everywhere up here, right? It's just absolutely everywhere. I just move out of the way so you can see it there is goodwill. That was just goodwill everywhere. People want to do something, want to contribute their time, their energy, their skills, the connections or something. But the key thing is how to harness that. And that is what the Irish Embassy and the Friends of Ireland in Wellington, New Zealand deserve great credit for. Thank you all. Have a wonderful month. And I wish you all the very best and thanks so much indeed to everybody who is here today.