Season Greetings to all our GFF Colleagues
December brings many holidays, feasts, and happenings! It’s certainly a busy month of the year. Just remember to grab a cup of hot chocolate or Eggnog and relax when you can. 6 December is Saint Nicholas Day, the patron saint of children. 18 December marks the beginning of Hanukkah and 25 December is Christmas Day, a Christian holiday. December’s traditional birthstone is turquoise. It is considered a symbol of good fortune and success and December’s birth flowers are the holly and the paperwhite Narcissus. Did you know December is National Pear month too?!
Do you have any learning and development (L&D) plans for December? Remember L&D doesn’t always have to be work related so, if you can, take some time out and delve into Christmas craft activities. Stay calm and stress-free by practising health & wellbeing techniques, a bit of ‘you’ time is the perfect present!
Or, if you are feeling the need to develop yourself professionally:
- Try to attend a holiday party or get together away from the office. ‘Tis the season for warm welcomes and charitable gestures. Are you part of a local professional organisation or a charity? Use these to help build your professional network. You will be surprised how many people are on LinkedIn!
- The new year brings renewed energy, but don’t let all those new up-and-coming projects suppress your professional and personal development goals. Use December to firm up your plans for L&D training in the new year.
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Our new look web pages have launched on OneFinance!
 Designed with you in mind, the new look GFA pages are their to make your life easier when looking for the learning and development you need to progress your career. Aligned with the Career Frameworks, use the new search feature to find the learning that is appropriate to your development requirements.
Check out our new look and give us your feedback!
Technical Accounting Training (TAcT) Events
Our 2022 Technical Accounting Training is now complete
Recorded videos and the slides from all three live modules are available on OneFinance. A big thank you to all those who joined us over the two weeks (Over 2,000 of you) and we hope you found it insightful. Regular fans of the TAcT events will recall we also deliver updates from HM Treasury’s Government Financial Reporting team and National Audit Office (NAO) colleagues. These are now also available on OneFinance and provide extra context around the TAcT content. You will also see a high-level video targeted at directors and directors general which covers a summary for senior leaders.
Do make sure you take a look at these videos to get the complete 2022 TAcT package, and of course revisit any of the modules you’d like to watch again. Until next year!
Thursday 8 December from 10:00am to 11:00am
An event to expand your knowledge. We’d like to invite our Yorkshire and Humber colleagues to a regional finance network event on 8 December, this is the first event with our new Y&H Steering Group.
This session will give you a chance to meet the team, with a focus on building your career in the regions, we’re delighted to have Tara Smith, Finance Director at Food Standard Agency join us to share her story and advice. The session will also look at priorities for the region going forward, so bring your ideas and wish list.
We’re looking forward to seeing you all there. Register on OneFinance for the Microsoft Teams link.
Yorkshire & Humber RFN Steering Group
Suzanne Ibbotson (HMT), Mike Buckley (DWP), Lisa Eadon (DWP), Pippa Jones (MoJ), Kate Roberts (PHE), and Liz Fishley (FSA).
AAT
The AAT Impact Awards: is a new and exciting awards ceremony where AAT will be recognising the inspirational people who make up the AAT community. They are free to enter for all AAT students, professional members, training providers and employers.
This is a unique opportunity to be recognised for your inspiring achievements and to celebrate the unsung heroes making an impact on the finance industry. You can either nominate yourself or a friend or colleague who you think deserves recognition for their dedication and hard work.
All you need to do to enter the awards is answer two questions, firstly, telling your inspirational story and second, describing how you meet the awards criteria. The award criteria and additional information can be found on the campaign page. The deadline for entries is 5.00pm on 9 December 2022.
The Commercial Finance Knowledge Network provides support to colleagues across government who are working on Commercial Finance activities. After a recent pause they are looking to re-launch the network with an event and a questionnaire.
The launch session will be held virtually on Monday 12 December 2.30pm to 4.30pm. Register to attend and take the questionnaire.
If you have any questions, email commercial-finance-mss@cabinetoffice.gov.uk.
How much do you remember?
Self-directed learning takes initiative, motivation, good time management, and self-discipline, but it's ultimately worth it. From setting goals to boosting your memory, personal growth is crucial for your career and wellbeing alike. In self-directed learning, the responsibility to learn shifts from an external source (teacher, etc.) to the individual, so much of the onus is on you to remember what you have learned. But how easy is it to forget what you have learned? Extremely easy if it’s not put into practice within a short time period. So how do we retain the knowledge we have absorbed at a training course or after reading a book or after watching a video
December is such a busy and often stressful month, and physiological factors, like stress and sleep, also have a significant impact on how much information you retain. The Forgetting Curve (MindTools version) is a short four minute video using the theory of Hermann Ebbinghaus, (a German psychologist who founded the experimental psychology of memory) about how to absorb information and make it stick. It has some really useful hints and tips.
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National Awareness Days to Remember in December
Disability History Month
Disability History Month is an annual event which provides a platform to focus on the history of disability and the struggle for equality and human rights. This year, the Disability History Month takes place between the 16 November and 16 December and includes the International Day of Persons With Disabilities (IDPWD) on the 3 December. There are various events being organised by departments and disability networks across the Civil Service and we encourage you to check with your organisation's disability network for specific events that you may be able to join. Please see details below on events open to all civil servants:
- HM Treasury: The department hosted a panel session: “In Conversation with Yazmine Laroche and Alfred MacLeod” on the 1 December 2022. Organised by HMT’s Disability Action Group, the conversation was led by Yazmine Loroche who was the first female ‘Deputy Minister’ with a visible disability in the Canadian public sector and Alfred MacLeod who heads a team that works with each department to formulate strategy to improve the situation for disabled employees in defined areas
- Department for Education: The department has a broad programme of events for Disability History Month including:
- Panel event with Sarah Healey and Andrew McCully on Accessibility, Acceptance and Ability
- Comedy Club with Rosie Jones
- Microsoft Accessibility overview
- Experiences of being a deaf child in the education system
- HMRC: The department is marking the IDPWD on the 7 December. The Diversity Network will be holding a Disability Discussion Forum open to all HMRC colleagues and the Wales team are running a talk on Neurodiversity open to all
- Ministry Of Justice: The department is running a number of events open to all civil servants including a session with 'The Charity for Civil Servants', a presentation on autism and ADHD and Shine the Light on non-visible disabilities. For further details please contact diversity-and-inclusion-team@justice.gov.uk
For further information and details of how to join any of the events listed above, please email: inclusion@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
If you would like to get involved in The Government Finance Function Diversity, Inclusion & Wellbeing Working Group, who meet on a quarterly basis, then please email: people@hmtreasury.gov.uk
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Action for Happiness
A small picture of the This is absolutely the month for carrying out small acts of kindness. See if you are able to follow up the actions given for each day and encourage others to do the same with the help of the Action for Happiness calendar.
Spread a little happiness and reap the rewards, if not physically, then emotionally.
Midlife Happiness: Ageing is inevitable, but how we age is not. Join Siobhan Freegard is the Founder of the UK’s first and most commercially successful parenting site “Netmums” and was awarded an OBE by Prince William for ‘Services to Families. She has some helpful advice on how to overcome midlife challenges and find happiness as you grow older. Mid-life can be particularly hard as we struggle with work responsibilities, raising children, ageing parents, financial issues and health challenges. Menopause impacts half the population and can have a huge impact, from extra weight around your middle to managing intense emotions to the impact on your relationships. And this impacts men too: over two-thirds of divorces are initiated by women and the key time to divorce is in mid-life.
Siobhan explores how you can embrace midlife and find ways to thrive in this stage of your life. She shares helpful insights and tips about the menopause and more, including how to talk about what you're going through with the key people in your life. And she explains how, by positively approaching and managing this transition, you can set yourself up healthily for the next phase of your life.
The event video is available on YouTube for you to watch, however we appreciate that not all departments are able to access this channel.
Action for Happiness are hosting another wellbeing event on Wednesday, 14 December 2022, online via Zoom at 7:00pm UK time. “Overcoming Anxiety with Dr Wendy Suzuki” is about how you can overcome your anxiety and use it to live a calmer, happier life. Book your place via Eventbrite. Turn your anxiety into a gift rather than a curse.
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"Dear George: Remember no man is a failure who has friends."
Clarence Odbody (played by Henry Travers) in the 1946 film 'It's a Wonderful Life'.
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HMT’s Horatio Georgestone
Horatio led an amazing session at P&C’s Away Day on “Diversity of Thought and Social Capital“. In typical Horatio style, it was engaging, participative and emotionally intense. Thank you Horatio, you are a great ambassador for inclusivity, emphasising the importance of creating a work culture and environment that recognises, appreciates and effectively utilises the talents, skills and perspectives of each and every one of us.
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What
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When
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Where
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Commercial Finance Knowledge Network (Re)Launch Event
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12 December
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Microsoft Teams (Register in advance)
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Professions and Functions week
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6 to 10 February 2023 November
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TBC
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Trainees Finance Leaders Conference
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7 March 2023
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London
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Trainees Finance Leaders Conference
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9 March 2023
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Leeds
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C is the Career Frameworks built to help you reach your dream
H is for the hope we have, to build your self esteem
R is for our resourcing for all grades across the piece
I is for inclusivity, our wellbeing and our happiness
S is for Strategic workforce planning we endorse,
T is for the shortlisted for a GFF award
M is for our mission, to continue to build rapport
A is for all the apprentices, fast streamers and networks we support
S is for the “seasonal” success we want for you
Our GFA web pages have lots of Christmas learning you can do!
A wonderful, peaceful and festive season top all our readers
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