We’re Not Going Out for Valentine’s Day…or are we?

Lucy slammed her laptop shut and took a large swig from her glass of wine.

Lee looked up: "All going well in children's party land, then?"

Lucy snorted: "It was, until my prospective client decided he needed to see all my health and safety and DBS certificates since I started the company. That will mean me spending the next two hours digging them out of that pile of paperwork in my office."

Lee nodded: "And by office, do you mean the spare room I haven't been able to get into for the last six months?"

Lucy nodded and sighed: "Starting my own business was supposed to give me the freedom to spend more time with the kids, take them to football practice and dance lessons…"

"Don't get those two mixed up. Our little ballerina won't be able to learn pointy toes in football boots…," Lee said.

"Are you sure you want to spend more time with our children?"

Lucy smiled: "Strangely, I do. They're certainly better than dealing with staff training records…"

Lee laughed: "Daisy's been trained? In what? How to answer a six-year-old's questions? Actually, I suspect she's rather good at that!"

Lucy smiled: "Potential clients want to see that we're a professional outfit. We are in charge of their children for three hours at a time. And, we're planning to scale up to larger venues in the summer, so we will need to take on lots more temporary staff.

"We'll also need to find out what we need to do for the new Martyn's Law coming in soon. That gives venues and events organisers duties to protect the public, so we need some professional advice on that soon."

Lee nodded: "Our chain of car showrooms uses Penarth Management. Their consultants help us find out what we need to do to comply with health and safety, environmental, and data protection legislation, and they recommended something to help us manage things. Mango."

Lucy laughed: "Never been that keen. Prefer kiwi fruit…"

Lee smiled: "Online compliance software called Mango. You keep all the records in the cloud, and access them wherever there's an internet connection, I get the spare room back!"

Lucy nodded: "Sounds like a plan…You've forgotten one important thing, though. It's Valentine's Day tomorrow and I forgot to book a table or get a babysitter…"

Lee stood up, walked to the cupboard near the door, and pulled out a bunch of red roses.

"Good thing you have a truly romantic husband, then! Table booked for 7.30pm

at Casa Mia, and I put Geoffrey and Wendy on standby for babysitting last month."

Lucy smelled the roses and said: "Will you be my Valentine?"

• Find out how Mango's online compliance software could help your events or party business. Book a free demonstration which will be delivered via Zoom. We can help you achieve the ISOs you need, too. Call Penarth Management on 029 2070 3328 or email info@penarth.co.uk