Courtney Bennett on LinkedIn: 🥹🥹🥹🥰🥰🥰 Nina McHardy Britt Collard Natalie Iogha | 20 comments (2024)

A little something I've written in my Premmie Knitting Club Founder capacity while on parental leave. I felt very privileged to write about Laura and her preemie twins, they were born at 29 weeks (same as me!) and recently spent 59 days in the NICU. Laura is literally supermum, her eldest Vaea was just 13 months when the twins arrived early. I'm biased but her story is a fab 7 minute read, thank you for sharing Laura!

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Hi from mat leave! Can't help but devote a bit more love and attention to Premmie Knitting Club during this time. Sharing a message that we recently posted on our social channels about our 2024 appeal coming up in March. We are also actively looking for new volunteer board members (with a special interest in preemie related causes) to join us in 2024. If you know of anyone in your network (NZ based), please share this with them and spread the word. We are particularly keen to hear from people who have previous experience on volunteer boards or have worked closely with NICU's, hospitals etc. Cheers, Courtney Nina McHardy Natalie Iogha

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Super excited to be supporting this via Premmie Knitting Club . Have a listen if it’s of interest 💗

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Welcome back to work Ashleigh Bennett!! Back side by side in the Auckland office for a few weeks then it’s time for me to leave for a little bit 😜

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Our latest in person Premmie Knitting Club event at Crave Cafe in Auckland, not a chair spare as we knitted for the NICU and sewed peggy squares into blankets (I even did one which is evidence of how easy sewing up is!), all round great way to spend a Sunday morning with our community… drinking coffee, catching up and making some much-needed items for the smallest bubs!

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I rarely post on LinkedIn these days but given its #internationalwomensday I want to take the opportunity to recognise the amazing women who sit on the Premmie Knitting Club board who have helped me shape the charity into what it is today. We all have corporate jobs outside of PKC, Nina McHardy leads a large team for hers and Natalie Iogha juggles work, young kids and her other baby, KidSet. Nat brings the amazing knitting brains and knowledge (especially useful given I don’t knit!). My mum is the engine that keeps PKC ticking along, I do lots of the public stuff but she’s always behind the scenes doing the sorting, couriering and liaising with our wonderful knitters, I really couldn’t do any of it without her, Nina and Nat.Very cool that in 2023 we can be working fulfilling corporate jobs, raising our families and growing PKC, I owe these women so much and everyone else who supports me to do this.Special shout out to two other important people in my corporate life, Erin Ashton and Femke Sutton (nee Mason) who have supported me in my work journey alongside me also being a mum and set positive examples daily of what this looks like, very lucky to have their support! PS: PKC’s annual winter appeal starts soon, if you know a knitter please send them our way! The preorder for our fundraising clothing finishes tomorrow too, last year we donated much needed furniture to Neonatal Intensive Care Units with the profits and we can’t wait to do the same again in 2023! https://lnkd.in/grkHtzh

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Sharing some 2022 highlights for the charity (supporting Neonatal Intensive Care Units) which I run outside of corporate life. Many of you in my professional network support what I do with Premmie Knitting Club and I so appreciate it. I say this often, but I am also extremely grateful to work for a company (EY) that provides me with the flexibility to do this. Here’s a video wrap up and some details for anyone interested, bring on 2023 and happy holidays!1. 2022 was the biggest year yet for PKC! 2. We raised over 10k NZD towards preemie related causes and donated so much knitting throughout the year!! We also bought wool that some of our regular knitters used and then donated items back to us.3. We received lots of Peggy squares which our volunteers turned into blankets for NICU babies, I estimate we donated twice as many blankets compared to last year. 4. We also collaborated with knitting kit brand, Kidset, on a fundraiser for Ukraine.5. One of the biggest highlights was receiving regular donations from people like Janis and Lorraine pictured in the video, thanks to all our knitters but a special shout-out to our regulars, you know who you are. 6. Our fundraising merch was a real hit, we worked with Polly Walker who did some limited edition 2022 designs. Thanks to everyone who supported. It was a joy to see you in your gear! Polly is currently working on 2023 designs.7. Through our merch sales we were able to donate chairs to Christchurch hospital NICU and a whanau bed for north shore NICU/ Well Foundation, fantastic to make such a tangible difference alongside our knitting.8. We absolutely loved our in person knitting event at Ozone, Auckland in august!! So special meeting knitters and getting to know everyone while creating blankets and items to donate, our next event will be in Feb 2023. 9. My nephew Fred spent time in the NICU, this reinforced my personal purpose with PKC and highlighted to me how amazing the doctors, nurses and staff are and how special the knitting we donate it, Fred has kept his blanket and NICU items to be treasured forever.10. Finally, we love working with organisations like Littlemore and the certificate they sent was very cool!https://lnkd.in/g9CbrXZ

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Honestly pretty excited to get this in the mail!! So excited I framed it! From July- October I did a Stanford University Graduate School of Business course in design thinking. We had a great facilitator, Mary, and I really enjoyed doing something outside of my usual role, comfort zone and life.During the course, our group at EY (Team Experimental Minds 😎) met each week via teams, it was awesome to troubleshoot and be supported by such a great group of women Jennifer Macfarlane Jessica Peoples Anne Renwick Gayatheri Grenfell Lauren Barker Erin Ashton, they definitely kept me honest and inspired throughout!I’d only recently joined my new team on secondment from another part of EY so it was a nice way to get to know a few more people from Oceania.Big thanks to the colleagues and friends who I interviewed for my project (I focused on guiding parents through the digital world to keep children safe), my manager, Erin Ashton, for being our Experimental Minds team leader and my buddy,Lauren Barker, the most positive, organised and motivated other half of our study buddy pairing! Jury is still out as to whether higher education is for me but I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to do this via EY!

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#proud Nina McHardy ❤️❤️❤️

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