FROM a group of student entrepreneurs to talented local artists and a rower who crossed the Pacific, this year’s Monmouth Women’s Festival celebrated a wide range of achievement. 

The festival is now in its 14th year and supports International Women’s Day with a  committee of 15 organising a range of events that highlight the achievements of women locally, nationally and internationally. 

The event started with a networking breakfast at Haberdashers’ Monmouth School for Girls (HMSG) and an official launch with Mayor of Monmouth, Cllr Chris Munslow, and Chair of Monmouthshire County Council, Cllr Jim Higginson, at the town’s museum. 

The museum is currently running an exhibition of photographs of the Monmouth area called A Woman’s View. 

Chair of the festival Emma Skipp said this year’s event had been very successful and called for more volunteers to join them to help organise the 2018 festival. 

She said: “The festival has been running for 14 years and supports International Women’s Day. 

“It supports and celebrates the social. political and economic achievements of women locally and globally. 

“Through our partnerships with the museum and other organisations and charities we are able to bring together an amazing and diverse group of people together to celebrate our achievements.”

A key theme of the festival is education and business and among the committee members are Lorelei Boston from Monmouth Comprehensive and Poppy Waller of HMSG. 

Emma said: “We are working in conjunction with the schools because we strongly believe that through collaboration and working with each other we can achieve a lot more – so our partnerships with the comprehensive and girls’ schools are really important.” 

The networking event allowed students to meet local business women and hear from two local women who have set up their own successful company. 

Laura Griffin and Kelli Aspland set up Solar Buddies two years ago and produce sun screen for children. 

Their inspiring talk covered the development of the company from when they first met and the idea for it, to working with Cardiff Metropolitan University on the product and their plans to expand their product range and market. 

On Saturday, some of HMSG’s young entrepreneurs were at the Shire Hall in Monmouth to sell and exhibit the products created by their company, Timber. 

Timber was set up as part of a Young Enterprise initiative and has involved 15 students from Year 12 in creating items for sale including a popular take on ‘upcycling’ which sees them cover notebooks with pages taken from library books at the school which are no longer used. 

Hera Lui explained: “Each of the notebooks is unique and it is also recycling books that are no longer in use. 

“We are raising money for Room to Read, a charity that supports literacy among girls in Africa and Asia.” 

Colleague Katie Kilbourne added that the festival had given them the chance to meet and network with some ‘inspirational’ women.

The teenagers had set up a stall at a pop-up exhibition at the Shire Hall which featured artists from Monmouth and Ross and included children’s workshops headed by Lydney-based artist Rachel Shilston. 

Among the other events was a talk by local author Alis Hawkins about the real-life circumstances of a murder in Victorian west Wales which inspired her forthcoming novel None So Blind. 

Students from Monmouth Comprehensive and HMSG worked on their rugby skills with a session led by Monmouth RFC’s development officer Craig Everett. 

They were joined by members of the Marians, Monmouth RFC’s women’s section and their coach Dan White. 

One of the highlights of the festival was a talk by Natalia Cohen who spent 257 days at sea rowing 8,446 miles between Australia and the USA as part of the all-women Coxless Crew. 

The festival has also teamed up with Monmouth-based charity Homestart Monmouthshire to host a talk by the founder of mother and baby brand JoJo Maman Bebe who will be at the Shire Hall on Thursday, March 23. 

Emma said: “We will start working on next year’s festival and we would love to have more volunteers join us. 

“It is a lot of work – we work on it for a year and it would be good to get more local people involved – we welcome men as well as women. 

“You don’t need particular skills – just passion and flat shoes because you are on your feet a lot.” 

Anyone interested can contact Emma by e-mailing [email protected].