Now isn’t this something new. New for me at least! I’m happy I’ve finally been able to tell everyone about my new podcast, Good Influence with Gemma Styles, which premiered on Monday. I’ve been working on it for a good while and I’m really looking forward to having the opportunity to feature some wonderful guests and learn from them about a variety of subjects - at the same time giving you the opportunity to listen in and learn alongside me. That bit’s significant to me and is the reason why I felt it was important to include a Q&A section in the episodes to give other people, possibly with a different point of view from myself, the chance to get in on the chat as well. For the small number of episodes that were recorded before I’d actually announced the podcast, I couldn’t really ask on social media for question submissions without giving the game away, so I asked friends and colleagues to reach out to people who wouldn’t spill the beans and made sure there were a variety of voices for those episodes too. On top of submitting questions, if you have an idea for topics you’d really like to hear featured on future episodes then do let me know! I really want to make this a platform that is relevant to you and the things you’re interested in, or maybe would like to learn more about.

If you’ve already listened to the first episode then thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed it. I’ve had some really lovely messages and emails from people who connected with the episode and the subject matter (and with me and Charly, most delightfully) which is wonderful to hear. Continuing the series, new episodes will be released every Monday - subscribe to the podcast through whichever platform you prefer and you’ll get them automatically sent to your device as soon as they’re ready to be beamed out. Subscribing is a great way to support a new podcast, and if you fancy supporting further then rating and writing a review would be much appreciated! You can find links to listen on various platforms here.

A final note: I saw several messages this week from people who are generally unable to access podcast recordings through the audio. I hold my hands up and admit that this wasn’t something I knew about - but accessibility is something I want to be mindful of, and to that end, transcripts for podcast episodes will now be available for those people who require them. I have already thanked some of the people who brought the issue to my attention, but if you had also messaged me about it and yours wasn’t one of the messages I happened to see, thank you to you also!