A belated Happy New Year to you all. We gently welcome 2025 with welcomes, goodbyes, and achievements.
Bootstrap is home to a family of remorseless optimists; we try to see the best in each other and the world. This month we celebrate some of your achievemnents.
Sometimes it is important to acknowledge that the world for small businesses is hard at the moment. We see that amongst your neighbours and our own experiences. We all fend myriad forces that can tax our shared optimism. We have tried to support our tenant friends as best we can through this period, and we see lots of instances of you helping each other. So while we talk about the good, we acknowledge that times are still tough. Please let us know if we can help.
Latin American Women’s Aid (pictured above, some of the LAWA team accepting their award) is Bootstrap’s longest serving tenant.
Voluntary Action Islington awarded LAWA the 2024 Volunteering Team of the Year award for the work of their volunteers.
‘This incredible honour celebrates their tireless dedication and the vital contributions they’ve made to our mission. Simply put, we couldn’t have achieved so much this year without them.’
Julia Brenard (pictured right) has been a Bootstrap tenant for 7 years, and is a British stylist and Contributing Editor at Vogue.
She became the Contributing Fashion Director at The Blend (luxury supplement to The Week) @theblendjournal
Andy McDonnell (pictured left, recording womb) is a composer and musician; “Oooh I would say the biggest one is welcoming our little boy Ivo to the world on my birthday in march.
Work wise – lots of things but im very proud of continued work with the artist Anthea Hamilton and I designed the sound and music for a take on Othello with her earlier this year in Antwerp.
Also finally finished an album of string orchestra and electronics which will be out next year. Putting a single out ‘Womb’ on 24.1.25″
Lucy Cartwright (pictured left) is a Data specialist who focuses on supporting charities and SMEs; she has been at Bootstrap for 6.5 years. “In March, I won a tender to build a case management system for a charity supporting Sexual Violence and Advice Helplines in the VAWG sector. My interest in databases started in the late 90s, and although my career took me through roles in service delivery, finance, project management, and as a criminal barrister, a recent software engineering course led me back to building solutions in the Microsoft Power Platform.
I worked with the Helpline teams to create a user-friendly tool that simplified their workflow, generated reports instantly, and replaced multiple Excel spreadsheets. Despite long hours migrating data, I’ve never enjoyed a project more. The success of this work has been a major milestone and has led to an exciting opportunity for further projects, wrapping up the year on a high note.”
Another long standing tenant – Silverfish Films – made a promotional film that was shown at a charity event to raise awareness and support for a ground-breaking new treatment for glioblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of brain cancer. The team interviewed the longest-surviving individual with this diagnosis, along with his wife, and the doctor who pioneered the treatment.
Joe (pictured alongside fellow team members Tom & Nicole with Ross Kemp) from Silverfish said “knowing that our film helped secure funding for a treatment with the potential to save thousands of lives each year filled me with profound pride in my work and the company I represent, Silverfish Films”.
