About the Happy Mondays

The trend for women to set up businesses once they have had children is on the rise and has become the fastest growing sector of the small business community. It has even led to a new term, 'Mumpreneur', which describes those women whose businesses now contribute £4.4 billion to the UK Economy, while their founders juggle the school calendar with running their own businesses.

Happy Mondays has been set up by two such local Mumpreneurs, Sue Polley, who runs Kids car boot swap shop and Helen Wilkinson of Coco Cards. It came about after we acknowledged that we both needed to network to continue to grow our businesses but that neither of us felt particularly comfortable at formal networking events.

With four children between us (although Helen is in the lead by being able to claim ownership of three of them) we put our heads together and Happy Mondays was born. Our aim is run a group which genuinely meets the needs of busy Mumpreneurs, or those thinking of setting up their own businesses, in East Cheshire. We don't want our meetings to be stuffy, intimidating or too formal, moreover we want to create an environment where talented but often isolated Mumpreneurs and small business women can make new contacts, generate ideas, learn from each other, talk about concerns, make friends, support each other and promote their businesses.

In addition to our Monday meetings, we also run a series of evening networking, showcase and advice sessions. Although we've already arranged some we don't want to be in total control of the agenda though - Happy Monday's aim is to support local Mumpreneurs so tell us what you'd find useful and we'll do our best to oblige.