“I wouldn’t be the person I am today without The Boys’ Brigade.”
I’ve been fortunate enough to enjoy a great career: Earning an MBA, an Honorary Doctorate, and five Marketer of the Year awards. But my proudest achievement is a box of my BB badges that I used to wear on my sleeve as a child.
They’re a bit tired, and the gold sheen has faded at the edges. But they are still the accolades I hold dearest. When I got those badges, it taught me how rewarding it is to achieve: Knowing when you work hard, you get something back.
Many business leaders cite early failures, hard lessons, and tough love as the reasons for being where they are today. But the BB shaped my career more than any experience in adulthood.
The Boys’ Brigade taught me so much – I learned how to camp, play music, and I even learned how to sew. I’m still the only member of my family who can do that: Whenever one of my kids’ buttons falls off, I can sort it because I’ve had that skill since I was nine years old.
That’s what makes the BB so important: It provides you with all these essential skills for life: A foundation on which to build yourself. I arrived as a boy and left as a man.
It all started when I was eight years old. My father worked in the railway industry and was always on the move, with our family moving from Buckinghamshire to Newcastle-upon-Tyne before settling in Keynsham – a little town and civil parish located on the outskirts of Bristol.
The BB came into my life at a time when I was sort of trying to find my identity in a new town. I was a quiet introverted young person, and I found it hard moving to Bristol. I had this Geordie accent, and lots of kids my age had never met someone who sounded like that.
I was in the midst of trying to find myself, and after joining 1st Keynsham, everything changed. I really connected with it. I spent ten years there from 1981 to 1991. There was only one brief moment during that period where I moved away and considered doing other things, but I quickly returned and was welcomed back with open arms.
Mr and Mrs Donnell ran the Keynsham Company, and they ignored the period when I was away and said: “As far as we’re concerned, you never left.” That was a really lovely moment of acceptance. The leader Mr Donnell was a real father figure to me: A really good man. He was a formative person in my life and was my role model from an early age.
Following university, I worked at marketing and retail leadership roles at big name brands including British Gas, The AA, MORE TH>N, RSA, The Post Office, Aviva and Boots.
However my first taste of business can be traced back to my time in the tuck shop at BB. Sometimes I got to run the tuck shop and sell sweets, which is a career high. It was a dream job being King of Pick & Mix. But the whole thing was just a really good experience, and it did my confidence world of good. It helped me become a leader.
By the time I left the Company, I had a whole new life ahead of me. And I was ready for it. The Boys’ Brigade prepared me for that.
Having a BB membership on your CV can actually go a long way to improving your prospects of landing a great job. The organisation lets young people stretch themselves and learn and grow and develop in a way that makes them more interesting and employable. It also teaches you to believe in yourself.
A very important part of what The Boys’ Brigade do is connect you spiritually and also to really ground you in why we’re all here. Faith was so central to that: Growing as a person, having belief, and realising that you’re not on your own in life’s journey. You’re given a sense of purpose.
I know that my life has worth and value, and I’m here to make a difference. It’s not an arrogant thing. Everyone can say that. So often in life, people don’t know what to think. They drift. But The Boys’ Brigade explained you were special, and your life has purpose and meaning. Everyone, whatever skill they’ve got, can and should make a difference.
Before I attended any leadership training course in my career, the BB me how to become a leader and a good man and a better person. It pushed me to see what I was capable of and what I could do. It gave me drive.
I’d love to know how some of my fellow members are getting on and talk about the good old days. I’d also like to hear how others benefitted from their time there regardless of which Company they were a part of.
But what I know for sure is: I wouldn’t be the person I am, doing the job I’m doing, if it hadn’t been for The Boys’ Brigade. I genuinely believe that. I am who I am today because of it.
