It was a celebration of a life well lived, so sad, but not despondent.

At an appropriate moment I invited the recently arrived vicar to join us at the wake. To my surprise, despite it being her day of rest, she accepted, explaining that amongst the congregation she had spotted a few formerly regular parishioners who she knew to be struggling to accept their first female vicar – this was too good an opportunity to miss!

What a wonderful reminder that ‘networking’ takes many forms – in the end it is all about spotting the opportunities to create, build and maintain relationships and then making the most of them. As it turns out attending a funeral is a great networking opportunity – even for the vicar!