Welcome

80 days.

Famously long enough to travel round the world by steam power. It’s not a huge amount of time in the grand scheme of things, but it is certainly long enough that you notice it passing. When something you are looking forward to is 80 days away, that feels like aeons. You probably can’t remember what you were doing 80 days ago, it will have faded into the dusty corners of your memory, along with many unremarkable lunches, work meetings and embarrassing moments on nights out when you had one too many. If you were told you had to spend 80 days doing something you hated, you would rightly feel dismayed, because that would seem to you like forever.

But, the 80 days I have spent at South West Mutual, have absolutely flown by - because I have really enjoyed them. 

The team was (and still is) warm, welcoming and witty making sure to challenge me, but not to the point that I felt overwhelmed. While I have had other jobs before this, this was my first time in a professional working environment and Adrian, Annabel, Darren, John and Tony brilliantly performed the delicate balancing act of giving me enough responsibility and autonomy for my contributions to feel worthwhile and for them to be my own contributions, but not so much that I was in over my head. They were very patient in explaining things, like the bazillion different banking acronyms (PRA, FCA, KYC, LTV etc.) and very quick to encourage me that I would be able to pull off a research project that would eventually inform the RBP (don’t we just love an acronym here at SWM). 

I will miss South West Mutual, whether it’s John’s tales of the wild west banking of “the old days”, Adrian’s motivational musings, debates with Tony about economics, chatting with Annabel about London and her student days or Darren and I talking about statistics! I have definitely left this internship more skilled and with valuable experience going forward. It has also given me a litmus test for how a workplace should feel. Also, they paid me, which for an internship in the UK is often more than you can expect! 

If SWM are offering internships in the future I would advise you to put yourself or friends or family forward, it is a great place to work, I feel I have achieved something and had a lot of fun while doing it. 

Olly 

We are delighted that David Thomas has been voted in as the chair of our board on the 6th August 2019. 

He is a well respected and experienced individual who we are delighted to have as part of the SWM team. 

David who qualified as a lawyer in 1969 in England and 1991 in Ireland, later took up the position of Banking Ombudsman in 1997. In 2005 he became Corporate Director and Principal Ombudsman responsible for corporate policy, legislation/rules under which the Financial Ombudsman operates, it’s relationship with the Government, European Commission, the financial regulators, Office of Fair Trading and the Ministry of Justice. He was also the interim Chief Ombudsman from November 2009 to March 2010 whilst a new incumbent was appointed.

David said of his appointment '  I am delighted to join the talented team that is working to create a new bank with exceptional features. It will restore accessible banking in Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset. It will be fair, efficient and trustworthy - qualities guaranteed by the fact that its customers will be members with a say in how it is run.’  

We have a busy time ahead of us over the autumn months, with the operational teams key focus of writing  our regulated business plan to provide banking in the region.

Alongside that we'll be building our founder membership group, launching our new brand and identity and commencing the next round of fundraising. If you are attending the South West Business Expo on the 20th November, come along and meet us - the team will be there on stand number 56, meeting new people and sharing the new visuals with the 3,000+ people attending.

You need to book tickets to attend ( it's free!) which you can do on the form below or via our the social media links. 

We are also planning a series of events in the early part of next year, to build awareness of what we are trying to achieve across the four counties - so look out for further information. 

Thanks as always for your ongoing support - the excitement and focus is building every day and it's your words of support and sharing our story with others, that motivates us to build something special for the people of our region. 

We look forward to updating you in our December newsletter.

The South West Mutual Team