Leabold Summer Newsletter 2022
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<strong>Summer</strong> <strong>2022</strong><br />
<strong>Newsletter</strong>
IN THIS ISSUE<br />
Page 3 - <strong>Summer</strong> Update<br />
Page 4/5 - Investing in Nature<br />
by Derek Lavington<br />
Page 6-8 - Q&A with Husain<br />
Barwaniwala<br />
Page 9 - Keith Conquers Pen y<br />
Fan by Stephanie Lewis<br />
Page 10/11 - May I Introduce you<br />
to Someone? by Graeme Delf<br />
Page 12 - <strong>Leabold</strong> Day Out:<br />
Well-being Retreat at Coed Hills<br />
by Erin Nash<br />
Page 13 - New Adventures
S U M M E R U P D A T E<br />
What a whirlwind of a summer it's been so far! The weather<br />
has been unpredictable at best - if it's not a heatwave, it's<br />
a storm. Our social calendars have been jam-packed with<br />
everyone making up for lost time after two years of on/off<br />
lockdowns, and we're still adjusting to it.<br />
So far at <strong>Leabold</strong>, <strong>2022</strong> has brought us various shifts and<br />
changes. We won't waste any time in diving into all the<br />
news of these past two quarters...
INVESTING<br />
IN NATURE<br />
By Derek Lavington<br />
- Director/Compliance Officer<br />
Foraging refers to the practice of gathering wild food, typically<br />
plants and fungi rather than animals. I guess the first question<br />
that should be answered is why forage?<br />
I can’t say that I forage out of any grand environmental ideal,<br />
rather it’s reflective of my instinct towards thrift. Although<br />
financial services may have a reputation for excess and<br />
ostentatiousness, that’s not the <strong>Leabold</strong> way and it’s certainly not<br />
my way. Unlike many in the industry, I come from a modest<br />
background where the importance of hard work and<br />
conservation was impressed onto me from an early age. Hence,<br />
I’m fairly allergic to waste and constantly vigilant for opportunity.<br />
Doesn’t matter whether it’s tax savings, charges or returns on<br />
financial products. The same applies if I see free firewood or a<br />
good second-hand car for a fraction of the price of a new one.<br />
Fact is that no one ever got rich by wasting money.<br />
Anyone who has recently taken a trip around Tesco can’t have<br />
failed to notice the increase in cost of just about everything,<br />
including food. However, to be fair, things like pre-packed veg<br />
have always been ridiculously expensive for what they are. For<br />
the cost of a plastic bag of mixed salad leaves, a packet of<br />
seeds, along with some patience, care and attention will typically<br />
yield you a ridiculous amount more.<br />
The usual excuse is that people don’t have the space or time to<br />
grow stuff, something I appreciate given I’ve a fairly full-on<br />
career. However, this is where the opportunities for foraging<br />
loom large. All you need is a plastic bag, a walk in the country,<br />
and a little knowledge.<br />
One of the easiest things to forage are stinging nettles. They are<br />
also one of the healthiest things to eat, tasting just like spinach<br />
when cooked, plus they are hardly difficult to find. Just cut the<br />
tops and boil them and use as per spinach - simple as that.
There are so many other abundant weeds that you can also use, dandelions being one.<br />
Everything on them is edible, from the flower to the roots. If you use the leaves for salads, make<br />
sure they are young, likewise you can boil the root as a vegetable. Common plantain leaves<br />
(again if young) make a good salad leaf, as does ‘jack by the hedge’, which lends a nice garlic<br />
tang. Add to this ‘fat hen’, ‘chick weed’ and ‘ground elder’, and you can produce a salad<br />
superior to anything coming out of a plastic bag. Particularly in Wales, there are so many<br />
different wild plants that are easily available and prepare. It’s just a matter of knowing what<br />
and where.<br />
Even as a long-time forager, I love to go on foraging sessions with others and learn their<br />
insights. Back in March, I was pleased to go on session run by Kim Butts in Bute Park in Cardiff. I<br />
was kind of surprised by just how much wild food could be found in a municipal park near the<br />
city centre. Yes, there was the obvious stuff such as daisies and plantain, but I also learned<br />
about frying hogweed tops in batter, and discovered an ocean of wild garlic. It’s also worth<br />
knowing that the exotic magnolia booms from the many different species in the arboretum are<br />
edible and taste slightly of ginger.<br />
So impressed was I by the experience, I arranged an away day for <strong>Leabold</strong> at Coed Hills, where<br />
Kim took us foraging through the woods and then used the collected plants to prepare a dinner<br />
for us over an open fire. We were also given a masterclass in woodcraft by Barry Rowels,<br />
teaching us multiple different ways to prepare fire out of door and how to cook a chicken in an<br />
open fire using only a beer can and some tin foil. To commemorate the day, everyone got a<br />
quality foraging knife engraved with a message to remember the lovely day.<br />
You probably wouldn’t expect a<br />
financial services firm to spend a day<br />
out in the woods doing these kind of<br />
things. More often than not, awaydays<br />
are at fancy hotels. That’s not to<br />
say that the staff at <strong>Leabold</strong> aren’t<br />
partial to being spoiled on occasion,<br />
but we also understand the need to<br />
be grounded and appreciate simple<br />
pleasures that can give as much if not<br />
more enjoyment. After all, investing in<br />
nature is just as important as investing<br />
in our finances.
HUSAIN'S JOURNEY<br />
AT LEABOLD SO FAR<br />
By Erin Nash - PR & Marketing Manager<br />
So, what is the qualification that you recently received?<br />
Investment Management Diploma – it has two primary examinations; investment management<br />
and UK regulations & professional integrity. So, I recently completed the exam in UK regulations<br />
& professional integrity. Out of the two, I felt like this one was the toughest so I thought I would<br />
get that one out of the way first.<br />
And what does that mean for your career in financial services? What will that move you<br />
towards?<br />
In the UK, the FCA which is a regulatory authority for finance, have a set of qualifications that<br />
are to be acquired by financial professionals. So, for someone to have a career in financial<br />
management, it is important to have one of these qualifications before you go deeper into the<br />
industry. It helps you to grasp the ins and outs of financial services and know what you’re doing<br />
before you move forward with your career. Basically, it’s a starting point for me. However, you’ll<br />
also find qualifications that are easier to attain than this so I wouldn’t say that it’s an entry<br />
point for everyone but that’s how I see it for myself. People who have never studied or worked<br />
in finance before could take something more basic, but since I’ve been studying finance [at<br />
university] for the past three years, I’m able to start with this one.<br />
And you’re aiming to work towards becoming a qualified paraplanner, is that right?<br />
Yes.
So, what does being a paraplanner actually entail? What will you be doing?<br />
Okay, so, the role of a paraplanner depends on the organization. It’s not a set of rules that<br />
every company has for the duties of a paraplanner but working at <strong>Leabold</strong>, the primary<br />
function of a paraplanner is to work on financial adviser reports. So, the reports we send to our<br />
clients are drafted and analysed by paraplanners. Apart from that, they have additional roles<br />
here at <strong>Leabold</strong>, including forming the tools that are used for such analysis and analysing funds<br />
that we recommend to clients. A lot of background work goes into the advice reports, and this<br />
is what the paraplanners do at <strong>Leabold</strong>.<br />
You mentioned that there will be a second exam. Is that your next step or is there other things<br />
you need to do before you take that exam?<br />
Yes, that’s the next step for my qualification. Once I’ve passed these two exams, I will get the<br />
qualification certificate and will be a qualified financial professional in investment management.<br />
The second exam that I will take will probably be in the next two or three months, but I feel<br />
good about it because most of the things in this exam, I have already studied during my degree<br />
so I’m just brushing up for this one.<br />
I know some people struggle with taking exams, but I guess since you’ve recently left university<br />
and you did a Masters, maybe it’s not so bad for you. So, how do you feel about exams in<br />
general?<br />
Well, if you’re asking about taking examinations, during my masters I barely took any exams.<br />
Since covid hit, we couldn’t take exams in person and doing them online wasn’t very optimal for<br />
everyone. The reason being that there was a chance we could record the examinations and<br />
copy each other. Since we had a very large group of students in just one particular course, we<br />
didn’t have so many supervisors for each individual. And so the examination module was<br />
switched to report based modules so we would work on researching topics. So, I haven’t<br />
actually taken exams in two years but I did take a lot when I was doing my Bachelor’s degree<br />
and there’s a strategy I always use when taking an exam. So, what I do is before I even study a<br />
particular chapter, I study how important that chapter is towards the examination. For instance,<br />
if I take the example of the UK regulations exam that I recently took, there were three chapters<br />
which made up almost 50% of the material in the entire exam. So, out of ten chapters that I had<br />
to study, those three were the most important. So, my strategy is to focus on the topics that will<br />
help me score more overall. For this exam, you had to have more than 70% to pass, which is a<br />
difficult job.<br />
Yes, that’s quite high.<br />
t’s like getting a first class in my master’s degree, so it was tough getting<br />
more than 70% which is why I used that strategy. Apart from that, what<br />
I do is I tend to study the chapters that interest me the most as they are<br />
quite easy to recollect when taking an examination. Other than that, I<br />
just study like a normal person!
But you don’t get too stressed about exams?<br />
No, don’t get me wrong, I do get stressed about exams.<br />
Yeah, I think everyone does!<br />
Doing well in exams doesn’t take away the stress, in fact I find it makes it worse because if I<br />
haven’t failed an exam in a long time, I feel pressure to not fail in the future. If I’ve been able to<br />
manage a lot of exams before, I should be able to manage the ones I do for <strong>Leabold</strong>. It kind of<br />
sets my whole tone at the organisation. That’s what I was feeling before the examination, but<br />
thankfully I passed it. And there’s nothing wrong with failing, it’s always good to learn from your<br />
mistakes so even if I had failed, it might have been difficult to face my seniors, but that’s the<br />
reality. You have to accept it and move on, you have to keep trying until you succeed.<br />
That’s good advice. Is there anything else you want to say about the exams or the qualification<br />
in general?<br />
So, something I noticed is that in the past, I would study a particular module and then take an<br />
exam based on what’s in those books, so you kind of know what’s going to be asked. But when I<br />
sat my first exam in this qualification, it was entirely based on practical examples. So, you had to<br />
make a judgment on what kind of regulation would apply, it wasn’t direct questions, it was case<br />
studies where you would need to analyse the regulations in each situation. It was very different<br />
to exams I’ve done in the past and I think the organisation that sets these exams has a very<br />
unique approach in that sense.<br />
Yes, it’s very practical, showing how you would apply the knowledge in real life.<br />
Yes. When I took the exam, I had about 80 questions and I wasn’t confident about more than<br />
50% of the answers I’d given because they were all based on my best judgement, I had to make<br />
judgement calls. So, even if someone fails an exam like this, it’s not because they didn’t study<br />
well, it could be because somewhere in their mind, they made the wrong judgement.<br />
It's all about experience, I guess. The more you work in financial services, the more you’ll be<br />
able to answer that kind of question.<br />
Exactly.<br />
Since this interview took place, Husain went on<br />
to pass the second exam with CISI and has<br />
successfully completed his Level 4 in Investment<br />
Management. We are very proud of him!
KEITH CONQUERS<br />
PEN Y FAN<br />
By Stephanie Lewis<br />
- Financial Adviser<br />
We would like to congratulate one of our clients, Keith Griffiths on completing a climb of Pen Y<br />
Fan mountain on the 25th March. Keith and his colleagues at PK Safety in Ystrad Mynach<br />
decided to take on the challenge in order to raise money for Air Ambulance Wales, an<br />
organisation that relies entirely on charitable donations and receives no government funding.<br />
This was completely out of Keith’s comfort zone, but he was keen to raise as much money as<br />
possible and prepared for the climb by using the exercise bike at work during his lunch breaks.<br />
We're blown away by his motivation!<br />
They raised a phenomenal<br />
total of £2,066 for Air<br />
Ambulance Wales and Keith<br />
assured us that everyone<br />
involved had a great day. In<br />
fact, Keith enjoyed it so much<br />
that he has since repeated<br />
the climb twice, and the<br />
company plan to undertake<br />
further charity fundraisers<br />
later in the year.<br />
Well done all!
MAY I INTRODUCE<br />
YOU TO SOMEONE?<br />
By Graeme Delf<br />
- Financial Adviser<br />
Can I introduce you to someone, please? Just to put a bit of perspective on the news and<br />
possibly things we take for granted. I have recently been introduced to Mariia and I think her<br />
story will be interesting to you. Mariia and her son Robert and husband Nazar are refugees<br />
fleeing Lviv in Ukraine. Although he is male and of an age and health to fight in the war, Nazar<br />
was allowed to leave as Robert is autistic and non-verbal, and therefore the family is allowed to<br />
stay together to provide the required assistance and support that Robert needs.<br />
They are being hosted by a family who live near me, hence the introduction. Sarah, the host,<br />
was able to talk me through the process of how Mariia and her family got out of Ukraine and<br />
how they linked up with Sarah’s family.<br />
Despite the best efforts of the<br />
government, it seems that the<br />
best way for Ukrainian families to<br />
get taken in by UK families is via<br />
initially making contact via<br />
Facebook. This is what happened<br />
with Mariia and Sarah – they got<br />
into conversation and agreed<br />
that they were a good fit for<br />
each other.<br />
Mariia then undertook the<br />
‘minefield’ of paperwork required<br />
to get a Visa for her and her<br />
family. This was not easy and<br />
took so long that Sarah needed<br />
to get her MP involved to speed<br />
things up. Once the visa and such<br />
were finalised, the family were<br />
able to get a bus to the Polish<br />
border. From there, Sarah was<br />
able to arrange a flight to Luton<br />
for Mariia and family.
Whilst all of this was happening, Sarah had to get her house approved by the council who<br />
visited their home to oversee the arrangements that would be in place and the quality of the<br />
accommodation that the family would receive. (It is worth noting that any host only needs to<br />
provide a single room for a family to receive £350 per month – although, thankfully most hosts<br />
are able to provide more, and access to the whole house)<br />
Sarah thinks of it that she and her family are now sharing their home and facilities with Mariia,<br />
Nazar and Robert. They often eat meals together and are enjoying the shared experiences.<br />
Robert is in the local primary school and has already made friends. Mariia and Nazar both had<br />
to leave high-end jobs in the catering industry when they left Ukraine, but are both working now<br />
in local businesses. Their skills and experience mean that they should be working at a higher<br />
level, but at the moment they are willing to take whatever they can!<br />
I also believe that they really want to go home to Lviv as soon as they can – to the rest of their<br />
family, but they won’t talk about that at the moment.<br />
Sarah told me that the private Facebook group Sunflower Sisters Ukraine/UK | Facebook was of<br />
massive assistance all through the process.<br />
You may also want to look at the following sites for assistance, or to assist -<br />
Homes for Ukraine scheme: frequently asked questions - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)<br />
How can I offer a UK home to Ukrainian refugees? - BBC News
LEABOLD DAY OUT:<br />
WELL-BEING RETREAT<br />
AT COED HILLS<br />
By Erin Nash - PR & Marketing Manager<br />
After we visited Coed the first time, I went away<br />
feeling more inspired and creatively refreshed than I<br />
had in a long time - buzzing with ideas for projects<br />
and articles. Even in job positions that don't feel<br />
particularly 'creative' there are often things that we<br />
get stumped by and sometimes the simple act of being<br />
a new environment and switching off can make a huge<br />
difference.<br />
In April, the <strong>Leabold</strong> team enjoyed a Day Retreat at<br />
Coed Hills where we learnt bushcraft skills, went on a<br />
foraging walk through the beautiful woodland, and<br />
had a nourishing home-cooked lunch - all whilst<br />
connecting with each other on a fresh and deeper<br />
level.<br />
We decided to organise this event because even<br />
though it is not always practical to shake up your<br />
routine and do something new, it's important to step<br />
away from our desks and get out in nature as much<br />
as possible. This is something we've started valuing<br />
more as a firm after Derek and I visited Coed for the<br />
first time last year. So, it was only fair we let the rest<br />
of the staff step out of the office and experience this<br />
magical place for themselves.<br />
It's fair to say everyone really enjoyed and left feeling<br />
lighter than when we arrived. We're looking forward<br />
to doing something similar again in the future!<br />
Pictured is the cake (made by Kim from local foraged<br />
ingredients) that we enjoyed with herbal tea and<br />
honey from Coed's bees. Delicious!
NEW ADVENTURES!<br />
We recently said a sad goodbye to<br />
Tesni, who has been an integral part of<br />
<strong>Leabold</strong>’s administration team since she<br />
joined us in 2019. The team rallied<br />
together and gave her a lovely send<br />
off with all the essentials - flowers,<br />
chocolate and wine! We'll miss her<br />
greatly, but we wish her all the best in<br />
her next role and look forward to<br />
seeing what she achieves next. We<br />
know Tesni will go on to do big things!<br />
Another valuable member of our team, Victoria, is currently on maternity leave after welcoming a<br />
beautiful baby girl named Mia. We are so happy for Victoria and her growing family!<br />
To take on the administration duties of Victoria and Tesni, we recently recruited two new<br />
members of staff, Courtney and Emily, who are starting their careers in financial services and<br />
already doing great work here at <strong>Leabold</strong>. We can't wait to see how they will progress.<br />
Keep up to date with us on social media.
Thank you for reading our<br />
<strong>Summer</strong> <strong>2022</strong> <strong>Newsletter</strong>!<br />
We hope you enjoyed, but if you wish to unsubscribe,<br />
please email marketing@leabold.co.uk<br />
<strong>Leabold</strong> Financial Management<br />
Limited, registered in England<br />
and Wales. Company Registration<br />
No. 05173817. A wholly owned<br />
subsidiary of <strong>Leabold</strong> Financial<br />
Management Holdings Limited,<br />
registered in England and Wales,<br />
Company Registration No.<br />
8296996. Authorised and<br />
Regulated by the Financial<br />
Conduct Authority.