Women's wisdom

I hope there are no chauvinists out there who may have thought that that was an oxymoron.

The name refers to a new organisation that has been set up and I attended today's launch at Chilworth MAnor Hotel.

The idea is to provide help, encouragement, mutual support for women who want to set up their own small business - although some of the women I met were clearly only starting small.

It struck me how similar the aims (and identified needs) were to that of the Gender Balance Task Force. This is a horribly macho name for the group thatwas set up by the party to help encourage, train and mentor women candidates (we saw Jody Dunn first!) . I used to chair the group and we greatly increased the number of female candidates during my period in office.

Although they are not everyone's cup of tea a lot of women benefit from all female events - as one woman pointed out today. "It's an environment in which we can admit that things aren't perfect and we can ask for help."

Don't knock it - it works and I look forward to hearing more about Women's Wisdom in future.