Lancaster city centre march and networking event among events lined up for International Women’s Day

Equity refers to fairness and justice. Whil equality means providing the same to all, equity means recognising that we do not all start from the same place and must acknowledge and make adjustments to imbalances.

Lancaster social enterprise, The Growing Club, was founded in 2016 with exactly that in mind; to provide employment and business skills training for women because, overall, women’s lives are different to men’s, and so they understood from their own experiences that business training cannot be a “one size fits all” approach.

Seven years on The Growing Club has survived the pandemic and is still providing support for women. And, despite being a tiny organisation, they get up to 10 new enquiries a week.

In January, Lancaster City Council announced that The Growing Club was one of an initial eight local recipients of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, and their job is to support women to start new businesses and to grow existing businesses, because still only 20% of business are run by women.

To celebrate that funding, women from across the district are invited to an International Women’s Day event at The Storey Institute 10am to noon on March 8.

The morning will start with a fun networking event, to encourage collaboration and move us on from traditional networking - which can be scary! Then there is an opportunity to help us plan business support for women for the next 12 to 24 months.

Jane Binnion, MD of The Growing Club, said “Come along and tell us what support and training you need and want to help you start and grow a business here. Our job is to be guided by you and deliver what you need.”

To book your place at this event, email [email protected]

Other International Women's Day events include a march in Lancaster from the town hall at 3pm on Saturday March 4.

Banner making workshops will be held at the Gregson Centre Hall from noon until 2pm on March 4, as well as one at the university.

The Tara Centre is also holding a women’s wellbeing drop-in from noon until 2pm.

A campaign by Women of Words entitled “What three words” will also see posters displayed in shop windows.