It’s that time of the year again, where we like to reflect on the year coming to an end and look forward to the new year and what it might entail.
2018 really has been a remarkable year for Team August with the launch of our unique online awards training platform, and all of our outstanding client award wins.
With multiple award wins at the UK National Contact Centre Awards, UK Employee Experience Awards, Grocer Gold Awards, Digital Experience Awards, ECCCSAs, UK Business Awards, National Business Awards, UK Customer Experience Awards and many others. We even secured an MBE from The Queen! We couldn’t be prouder to support some truly wonderful businesses, teams, and individuals, to help them get the awards they deserve for all their hard work.
Donna O'Toole, CEO, Awards Expert & Judge
August CEO, and Awards Expert Donna O’Toole, has judged many award entries and presentations throughout the year. From the Complaint Handling Awards at the beginning of the year to the Customer Experience Awards, Employee Experience Awards, Digital Experience Awards and Learning Awards.
Judging entries and presentations from a huge array of businesses and sectors gives us insight into the current trends in business. From employee experience to the innovative ways learning and development teams are implementing training. We can’t wait to see the award-winning trends in 2019!
Among all the fantastic award events, Donna has been lucky to be invited along to some incredible events this year. In February, Donna was invited by Michael Tobin OBE to join a gathering of esteemed guests for Lunch at the home of The Spectator and discuss how technology is changing politics – you can read the article here. Donna also attended an event at St James’ Palace to meet current Royal Warrant holders and aspiring businesses working to get their hands on the Royal accreditation.
Team August
It’s not just our clients who have been having all the success, here at August HQ we’ve had some wins of our own!
February 2018 saw the release of our online awards training platform – the very first, and only training platform specifically to teach businesses, individuals and teams how to win awards! We are delighted to have this up and running and available for people to get out there and start winning awards for themselves.
From the success of our Awards Training Masterclass series at The Shard, it’s been really exciting to go into our clients’ businesses and train them face-to-face on how to win awards, just like our expert award writers. We love completing these training days and seeing the results!
At the UK Employee Experience Awards, the tables were turned, and it was Donna receiving an award! Neil Skehl, CEO of Awards International, presented her with the Major Contribution to Judging Award, for her dedication to judging at the awards 2014-2018.
Many thanks
We would like to thank Awards International for their continued support. From inviting us to sponsor events and to speak at the Winning with Complaint Handling Conference, to running free webinars for award entrants and giving valuable advice. We look forward to seeing how their awards programmes progress into 2019, and we can’t wait to attend the fantastic awards finals next year too!
Also, we would like to thank The Learning and Performance Institute for hosting our ‘The Secrets to Winning Awards’ and ‘How to Create an Award-Winning Presentation’ webinars and inviting Donna to judge at the awards. We’re excited to meet the 2019 winners in February at the beautiful Dorchester Hotel!
Thank you to ISM Professional for inviting us to the fabulous BESMA finals, the award finals are always such a great event and we had a fantastic evening! A huge congratulations to all of those involved and all the winners.
A final thank you to the Awards Awards for our invitation to the awards finals. It was fascinating to see how many great award organisers there are pulling out all the stops to make their awards programme the one everyone wants to enter, such great insight and we’re grateful for the invitation.
What does 2019 have in store?
Now looking to the future…
We hope 2019 brings EVEN MORE award wins for our clients – both old and new. We have all our fingers crossed for our current The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise finalists, who we will find out if they are winners in April 2019.
We’re looking forward to training even more businesses, and empowering more people to enter and win awards themselves.
For now, though, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you very much for your support in 2018, and wish you a wonderful festive season. We’ll be back with a bang in 2019 to make your year award-winning!
With best wishes from Donna and all the team at August.
