A cooking club is helping children across South Wales develop skills using local, healthy ingredients. Angharad Underwood, 54, was inspired during the pandemic to create a cooking school for children, and now brings her classes to schools in Abergavenny to teach them to cook from scratch.
From preserves to lockdown cooking
Angharad grew up making natural preserves with her mum and grandmothers. This inspired her to launch ‘The Preservation Society’ in 2010, an artisan food business selling preserves made from locally sourced ingredients.
During lockdown, Angharad and her daughter Pip began cooking from scratch the things they craved but could no longer access because shops were shut. They shared their recipes online, and after getting a huge response, launched ‘The Cookalong Clwb’ to teach children how to cook healthy meals from scratch. This has now expanded to include teaching elderly people and people with disabilities.
Building confidence with food
Angharad said: “It's all about getting people, especially children, confident with food and ingredients. We've had people that have never cooked; one had forgotten how to chop an onion.
“It's great to get them together and cook together, to socialise if they wanted to and to share food and it really shows the value that cooking and eating has on mental health and enabling independence.”
Connectivity turns inspiration into opportunity
Angharad’s story comes as research, commissioned by VodafoneThree, revealed how mobile connectivity helps turn inspiration into opportunity. The study of 2,000 Brits found the best ideas come while outside the home, including while walking (33%), spending time alone (33%) and when in nature (29%).
Many are also most likely to feel inspired while at the coast or beach (36%), in the countryside (34%) or in woodlands or forests (24%). While 74% feel inspired by their everyday surroundings, 55% claim their local area fuels their inspiration.
Angharad is constantly using her phone to capture inspiration and ideas for new healthy recipes when she's out and about. She said: “I'm always on the move, I'm always going places, so connectivity is really important.
“I have my phone all the time because we're always looking at ingredients, you can have the best recipe and then you realise that somebody's got an allergy that you haven't factored in, so you need to adapt the recipe to something else.
“Sharing posts on social media also really helps to grow my business - you need to have a presence. You need to be able to share your story and to inspire others.”
Inspiration becomes business
According to the data, from OnePoll.com, more than 17 million moments of inspiration become real side hustles or small businesses across the UK every year. Of those who have ever started a business or side hustle, 11% got their inspiration while spending time alone, 9% talking to friends or family and 8% while walking.
When an idea strikes, 35% use their smartphone to immediately search for more information, while others have used their connection to work remotely (22%), collaborate with other people (20%) and share creative work (18%). It also emerged 92% find their phone helpful for capturing or developing ideas, while 87% say mobile connectivity is important when they want to act on an idea or opportunity immediately. Overall, 55% said getting online while out and about has helped them turn inspiration into something tangible.
Opportunity Hub comes to Abergavenny
To celebrate the places inspiring creativity and driving regional economic growth, Vodafone is bringing ‘Opportunity Hubs’ to locations across the country where network improvements are helping people stay connected, seize opportunities and turn inspiration into action.
To help locals in Abergavenny, Vodafone’s Opportunity Hub will offer practical workshops from Enterprise Nation, free professional headshots and expert advice, showing how connectivity can help transform ambitions into hobbies, side hustles or businesses.
Andrea Dona, chief network officer at VodafoneThree, said: “As our research shows, we reach for our phones the moment inspiration strikes - another reason why fast, reliable connectivity is so important. It’s also why we’re investing £11 billion to build the UK’s best network, delivering high-quality connectivity to every corner of the country.
“That includes Abergavenny, where Vodafone customers can now access up to nine times faster 5G speeds thanks to our recent network upgrades. By delivering stronger, more reliable connectivity, we’re helping people stay connected and make the most of every opportunity, wherever inspiration strikes.”
