Ell

My training was originally in art therapy, and I have a degree in creative expressive therapies. I graduated in 2008 to a very challenging job market, so I wasn’t able to pursue therapy as a career, and I ended up working in finance.

I’ve spent the last 8 years working for a charity giving free debt advice to clients. Although not directly related to my training, I’ve found that the therapeutic skills I’ve learned are very helpful when supporting clients in difficult or distressing circumstances.

Over the last few years I’ve become involved in the organisation’s diversity, equality and inclusion strategy, with an aim to making the service more welcoming and accessible to a broad range of clients, including clients who are neurodivergent, disabled, and/or queer. This is something I feel very passionate about, as I am familiar with many of the ways that existing systems and services exclude people in marginalised communities. I’m looking forward to building on what I’ve learned in this work, now that I’m part of Bloodwood Accounting.

Arianne

I was a 1970s hippy in Australia, and lived an alternative lifestyle in intentional communities in the rainforest til I moved to London in 2012.

In those decades in the forest I had a whole life: major relationships, births and deaths, bought and sold different places, started and ran several businesses, and involved in a wide range of community projects, community groups and living-together communities.

Accounting came into my life back in the 1980s through co-operatives and programs to empower my local community around money and finance. I’ve stayed because I love the power of accounting systems, I love the routine of bookkeeping, and I’m a bit of a spreadsheet geek.

I was assigned male at birth and always struggled with masculinity, which led to a deep involvement with menswork and men’s community for 30 years.  When I ran into queer and trans communities in London, though, the penny dropped: it wasn’t masculinity I’d been fighting all my life but the whole gender binary. I’m clearly non-binary and, looking back at old photos, have been all my life.

Now I especially love to serve my intersectional-inclusive communities by offering my skills, and working to develop skills and confidence around money and tax at a community level. And I seek to put my many vectors of privilege in service to my communities, intending to spread the power and to empower everyone.