A look back at our year
In 2024, we grew the team, expanded our business and had huge successes. As we always do at this time, we look back at the year that was. And ahead at what’s to come. Here’s what happened in 2024 at Morecambe Bay Wills.
In 2024 – our year in numbers
- 2 new estate planners joined our team
- 3 students came to help us with Admin over the summer and beyond
- 1500 clients were welcomed to the Morecambe Bay Wills family from our acquisition of Kendal Wills
- An additional 1000 new clients got the peace of mind of having their important documents in place. Family and friends of clients, and local advisors recommended over half of these to us. We are so grateful they place their trust in us to help those they know.
- We saw 100+ clients at our “Meet the Team” sessions. 3 of these won a total of £300 in gift vouchers in the prize draws at these events
- We added 3 new brands to the Morecambe Bay Wills portfolio
- Our Admin support team scanned 1000 paper files from Kendal Wills. That’s over 100,000 pages!
- 4 new charities benefitted from our “5% from every invoice” donations
- The team gave over 150 hours to community causes – from awareness sessions, voluntary activities and free consultations
- We donated £9,000+ to charity, bringing our total donated so far to over £30,000
- Our trophy cabinet now has another 3 new awards, and we were finalists for a further 2
What a year!
In 2024 – highlights of our year
We started with a bang – in QUARTER ONE:
We acquired Kendal Wills. Paul Rodman had looked after clients in Cumbria for several years and decided he’d like to retire. Our values aligned, so it was a natural fit for us when he asked if we would continue to provide a friendly and local service in the area. We welcome over 1500 clients into our family with a promise to look after them well and continue to be their trusted advisors. Many of them attended our “Meet the Team” events held in Cumbria and Lancashire and we have enjoyed chatting to many more this year.
We moved office – again! Knowing we were expanding highlighted to us that we would quickly run out of space in our current home. So we moved into bigger offices, still at White Cross, Lancaster and made it our own. We love having the extra space created – but initially we filled much of it with 10 filing cabinets full of Kendal Wills’ paper files!
Cerys joined our team. We formally welcomed Cerys Parry-Jones in February after she successfully completed her examinations with the College of Will Writing. She joined me in looking after our clients in North Wales and we have already been out and about at local shows and events. We’ve also started running local “Will Clinics” too. Let us know if you’d like us to come to your village or community hall.
New charities benefit from our support. Previously our donations of 5% from every Will and Power of Attorney had gone to support CancerCare and we had already raised well over £20,000. In 2024 we decided we’d also like to support other charities that meant a lot to us. So, we now also support the fabulous work done by Morecambe FC Community Foundation, Positive Futures and UniqueKidz. Each of these charities will have received around £2,000 this year – helping them to do so many amazing things in our community. Later in the year we would also pledge support for another charity local to Wales.
In 2024, our SECOND QUARTER was a busy one – especially with our new clients.
During this time, we:
Launched North Wales Wills. When we welcomed Kendal Wills, we also inherited the brand Lancaster Wills. And we love representing that we are local. Nicola has a cottage in North Wales, which is why we have many clients there. But we wanted to properly represent the local area, and with Cerys heading up things there we decided to launch a new brand. We love how successful it has been and lots of new clients have asked for help from the local team since.
Won at the Legal Growth Awards. We were shortlisted for “Best Use of Social Media” and for “Corporate Social Responsibility” awards at this conference and event. We were very proud to take away the CSR award. As you probably know, helping our local community and giving back is at the very hear of what we do – so it’s an award we are extremely proud of.
Celebrated our 5th birthday! We launched MBW in 2019 and we can’t believe it’s been 5 years. 5 years of growth, 5 years of smiles (and occasional tears) and 5 years of doing what we love. We celebrated with a team meal and talked about everything we’ve achieved in such a short time
In QUARTER THREE, we started to put things in place that would make our operations in 2024 and beyond more efficient.
During these 3 months, we:
Started scanning! And what a job! At Morecambe Bay Wills, we had done so much of our work electronically, but Kendal Wills came with over 1000 paper files. And we knew we would have to digitise them to work efficiently. Instead of contracting this out to a large company, we chose to hire 3 local GCSE/College students – paying them above living wage and giving them fantastic office experience. They started in June and stayed with us over the summer and autumn, helping us with other admin tasks. What a great success! We scanned over 100,000 pages. Local community groups, schools and churches recycled and reused all our plastic file inserts, manila files and filing cabinets too. Nothing went to waste.
Janet joined our team of Estate Planners. Like Cerys, Janet Pardula also completed her exams with the College of Will Writing and officially joined us in July. She has certainly hit the ground running, seeing clients all across Cumbria and Lancashire and she loves her work. And our clients love her too!
Commenced our support for St David’s Hospice in Llandudno. We’d been working with the team there for a few months, but over the summer we officially agreed that we would divert our “5% from every Will/LPA” donations from our clients in Wales to this fantastic charity. We also supported their Quiz night and attended a wonderful tour of their premises to see first hand the incredible work they do.
In 2024, we’ve done so much, but the FOURTH QUARTER has been the busiest we have ever had.
Our team:
Started working on a new system, LEAP, which integrates our emails, documents and drafting systems. It’s been a tough transition and initially has slowed us down but now we are getting to grips with it. And we can see how efficient it will make us in 2025 and beyond. Just what we needed!
Changed our storage processes. We are working with a new partner to securely store your documents. We have redesigned all our related documents, including cards and information for Executors of Wills. This has proved very popular, and we’ve had great feedback so far.
Received more accolades. Nicola has been awarded Fellowship of the Society of Will Writers – and we are very proud of that. It is in recognition of her work for the Society. That includes contributions to their Professional Standards Board and representing them meeting with the Office of the Public Guardian. And her work designing, launching and running a Mentor programme for Society members.
As a team, we are also enormously proud to once again have been recognised at the “Oscars” of our industry. We were finalists in 3 categories at the British Wills and Probate Awards. Andrea was shortlisted for the very prestigious “Estate Planning Consultant of the Year” award, and the whole team were winners of 2 awards. “Community and Charity Champions” is the one that’s very close to our hearts and being named “Estate Planning Firm of the Year” among so many small firms is incredible.
Sponsored local causes. Once again, we continue to support local events and teams. This year we have committed funds to Lancaster on Ice, Unique Kidz Pub Quiz, Trimpell Cricket Club and many more.
Into 2025
So, what do we have in store as we look forward to 2025?
In 2024, we have grown and changed so much and achieved a whole lot more than we thought possible. 2025 is a year of consolidation. We are recommitting to the work we do locally, to our clients and to our partners. Team MBW have no plans to grow at a fast pace but just to be here for those who need us.
We do have plans for new brochures, new ways of working and seeing lots more new clients! We also have plans for helping more clients, which means raising even more funds for our chosen charities.
Everything we had done in 2024 has been to make us more efficient, streamline the way we work and build great partnerships. Our admin team of Sue, Paula and Georgia are learning new systems and identifying new ways to support our clients. And they continue to assist our Estate Planning team – Nicola, Andrea, Jane, Cerys and Janet – who are always here to help protect you, your family and your business.
So as we reflect on the rush of 2024, we also know that we will continue to do what we love in 2025 and help more of you in the New Year.
Thank you all for your support this year. We can’t wait to see you in 2025. Call us on 01524 571032 or ask for more information and put peace of mind on your resolutions list for next year.