The Precious Awards 2010

And we're off. Preparation for The Precious Awards 2010 has begun (well it began a few months ago to be truthful!) As always I'm looking forward to it very much. I may be biased but its always a lovely, inspiring and positive evening.

We have had a fantastic 3 years working with Pearson plc, who we'll continue to work with on other projects, and we are delighted to be working with our new headline sponsors, The British Library.

The awards take place at The British Library, so its a bigger stage and a bit more pressure on us to organise, but most importantly it will gives our finalists an even bigger platform on which to shine.

Is there a women of colour running a business or displaying great leadership skills in the workplace who you feel deserves some recognition? There's still time to nominate @ www.preciousawards.com.

Write Out! Celebrating Women in Publishing

I'm very, very excited about the Precious Write Out event this Thursday, where we'll be celebrating female writers and getting published!

Our confirmed and quite brilliant line up is: authors - Gemma Weekes, Caroline Bell Foster, Sophia Acheampong alongside Rebecca Weekes, co- founder of The Literary Consultancy.

We're honoured to have as our chair, the prolific writer/author Bernardine Evaristo.

We've still got a few tickets left if you'd like to join us. Book your place at: http://writeout.eventbrite.com/

The PRECIOUS Arts Critic Programme: Irenosen Okojie

If you have been reading Precious over the last few months, then you'll know that we have been searching for an emerging young writer to take part in our first three month Arts Critic Programme.

The programme gives two people the opportunity to see and critque a range of theatre work in London and attempt to explore the cultural context of art reviewing. We're also offering some decent mentoring and access to some of the best names from our contacts book! We want to add more voices to the critical discourse and contribute to creating a diverse arts sector.

Well myself and the Precious Arts team (PJ Cobham and Amardeep Sohi) have interviewed some interesting and talented people and now, we have finally found the one.

Drum Roll please - I'm delighted to announce that the first person to join our Arts Critic Programme is Irenosen Okojie a London based freelance writer. We are all looking forward to working with her.

She'll be blogging about her experience on the programme via her new blog Sober in the Cauldron. Do support this new writing talent by following her.

New Year

Well what an interesting start to 2010 for me. I have been honoured with an MBE in the 2010 New Years Honours List. To say that I am staggered by this would be a vast understatement, its been a few weeks since the call came from through and I'm still finding it very weird.

I founded Precious a decade ago because I had a genuine passion to profile the achivements of women of colour. It's been a struggle getting support from the 'mainstream' and I suppose I hadn't truly thought that anyone at government level would notice what I was trying to do.
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The family is delighted, in particular my mum and that's good enough for me. I have had messages from people who have supported Precious for years, those I haven't seen for years and people I have never met, all wishing me just total good stuff. That's been so lovely and I have been overwhelmed by the good feeling.

I head to the Palace in February, and for a girl that hates shopping, its one of those rare occasions that I am kinda getting excited about what to wear...

The Precious Awards 2009

'It was the best one yet'...that's how our sponsors summed up the 2009 Precious Awards, sponsored by Pearson plc, which took place on November 16.

We had asked our guests to 'dress up' (cryptic huh?) but they truly did us proud as finalists and guests arrived in an array of beautiful dresses and stunning shoes. Our co-host Rasheed Ogunlaru even wore a silver suit!

The first part of the evening bore witness to some furious networking - which is what Precious is all about - over some wine and food - and there was a genuine air of positivity and optimism all around.

Then the awards presentation kicked off (hosted beautifully by Rasheed and Jessica Huie) and for me it all passed in a flurry, thank goodness we recorded it. Some of the most poignant moments included Jessica Elliot, winner of the PRECIOUS Young Entrepreneur of the Year dedicating her award to her friend Daniel De Gale and Jo Behari, the PRECIOUS Entrepreneur of the Year, busting into tears on hearing she had won!

I'm really proud of all our finalists and I was struck by how determined, passionate, humble and indeed how very precious they all were. I wished we could have given awards to all of them, yet as the saying goes and as the judges said repeatedly throughout the judging - they are all winners. Indeed, and we'll be doing our best to support all of them.

Click here for a list of the 2009 PRECIOUS Awards winners

Time to go Bro

I've been a major fan of Big Brother from the start, I even went to Tom's (from BB1) eviction) but even I have to concede that it's time for BB to disappear from our screens - at least for a bit.
It's just plain boring now; everyone seems to have stopped trying, in particular the producers of the show. There are barely any tasks, the housemates are just plain uninteresting - apart from Marcus who looks as if he could tear down the house in a heartbeat if someone upsets him again - and its now just taking up valuable airtime.
Maybe Channel 4 could do somthing crazy and commission some new programmes from some genuine new talent.

And we're off

It's that time of year already, I can hardly belive it, I'm really excited that the Precious Awards 2009 have launched. www.preciousawards.com Bring on those brilliant female entrepreneurs of colour!

It's great that we are working with Pearson again (our lovely headline sponsors) and we're being supported by our partners at the British Library too. We've also secured another great line-up of judges. Our presenters are pretty special too (yes that's you Jessica Huie and Rasheed Ogunlaru)

Last years' Precious Awards winners have gone from strength to strength, the latest news is that our Entrepreneurs of the Year, La Diosa, are all set to showcase their beautiful brand at Buckingham Palace this month!!

I'm really looking forward to discovering the entrepreneurs that this year's nominations will bring and maybe gain an insight into the effect the recession has had. on those passionate and strong enough to set up or grow a business.