Q: How has your journey led you to SOOP Strategies?
A: I have loved writing since as far back as I can remember. Even when we went on family holidays, I would document the most exciting bits in my little notebook. I’ve never lost my love of writing, even though it’s been relegated to a hobby through much of my adult life.
The pandemic changed priorities for many of us – including me – and in 2022, after a 30-year career as an executive assistant, I decided to go full-in and follow my dream of writing for a living, specifically copywriting, which I’ve been studying since 2015. I was thrilled to join the SOOP team last year to support their copywriting needs and their passion for sustainability in the mining sector. I couldn’t have asked for a kinder and more fun group of people. The camaraderie and the passion to help are second to none.
Q: Let’s find out a few facts about you as a person. Favourite food?
A: That’s an easy one – chocolate! If you took me to a restaurant and told me you can only have one course, I would choose a chocolate dessert over the main course every time. Chocolate makes the world a happier place, definitely.
Q: Favourite season?
A: I can’t choose one, but I can choose two – and they are spring and summer. I love when everything starts waking up after the long cold winter. It’s as if I’m waking up from hibernation too and finding energy again. And then the long hot sunny days of summer are so very relaxing and good for the soul, before we head down into the two seasons I shall not mention.
Q: If you could meet someone from the past, who would it be?
A: It would be my grandparents. Now that I’m older, I have so many questions about what life was like for them. I love social history, and while we took their stories for granted when we were children, I’d love to ask them in detail about their day-to-day lives, now that I have an older and wiser perspective. My grandparents were born at the start of the twentieth century, and I wonder at the massive changes they saw through their lifetimes and how exciting (or intimidating) they found them.
Q: What is your favourite holiday?
A: Christmas, hands down. I love the feeling of goodwill and happiness, decorating the house, the tree, the Christmas songs, baking special recipes, carrying on the traditions I grew up with and creating new ones with my own family. It’s the one time of the year that I’m OK with it snowing. In fact, snow on Christmas Day is mandatory.
Q: What is your ideal vacation?
A: It’s hard to choose. It would be somewhere surrounded by beautiful nature, with good weather, and with great places to walk. It doesn’t have to be hot but it can’t be cold. So it could be a lush Caribbean island or perhaps the beautiful Yorkshire Dales in northern England. If it’s not pouring rain day after day, and there are places to explore, I’d be happy.
Q: What superpower would you like to have?
A: I remember watching Star Trek on TV when I was a child and thinking how fantastic the machine was that scanned your body and instantly diagnosed any ailments. I’d like to go one better and be able to wave my hands over someone and restore them to full health in a few seconds. That would be an excellent superpower. Imagine – a world free of pain and disease.
Q: What words of wisdom would you pass on to the next generation?
A: Be a decent person, meaning be kind, be respectful to others, and just do your best. Take the pressure off – there’s enough of that already in the world without inflicting it on ourselves too. If we all did that, I think the world would be a gentler and easier place to navigate.
We’ll be visiting another SOOP team member next month to find out more about the person behind the title.
To find out more about SOOP and the ESG work we’re passionate about in the extractives sector, read our inaugural Sustainability Report.