And I’m hoping that’ll be a super-duper multi-tasking, maximally organised and efficient woman! That carries a briefcase! And wears powersuits – even when working from home!

Maybe not :) Still I am working on reorganising my life having realised at our AGM just how many plans and ideas we have that require real effort to get moving. I’m writing endless to do lists and trying to turn them into Action Lists full of SMART objectives but frankly it may end up just confusing me even more.

You may or may not have seen the February issue of New Woman (out from the start of January) in which my life story features, along with a picture of somebody else. (The pictures actually got muddled up during the printing and so my pic is on the facing page but shhh don’t tell anyone). It being my first brush with celebrity I feel like I can now understand what the Stars go through when they complain about false statements in the press and such like – trust me, 90% of that article is quite untrue. It is interesting to see how my words have been taken and rearranged so as to be meaningless outside of their context and even more interesting to see whole sentences which were never uttered by me! Mary has kindly fought for my honour on the message board – I do not drink cheap wine thank you very much – and while my boyfriend has been a great help to my sanity it is not solely down to him that I was able to overcome my problems and “find happiness” for ever and ever.

The experience was interesting though and we shall be able to refer to it in the future when giving training talks or raising general awareness about self-injury as an example of how it is so easy to misrepresent the true story of what self-injury is like. Simply using the word slash turns it into something frightening and sensational and there was no mention of how I really managed to sort myself out – for example by finding myself a decent counsellor.

2006 has been a great year and seen us grow in many ways. Our Annual Report should be up on the website shortly, be sure to read it for an overview of our main achievements last year. Our AGM was a fantastic opportunity both for the directors to actually all get together in real life and for us to meet some of our members. Lots of discussion and ideas bounced around as usual so just watch as they unfold over the next few months!

Finally don’t forget that we can use your help in so many ways – research, writing, distribution, fundraising or general ideas people. If you think you want to be involved – and remember it looks good on your CV – don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Have a fab 2007,

Sarah