The Wednesday I Nearly Didn't Go

Why I started Hard Hats to Heels Cornwall

I Almost Cancelled On Myself

It had been one of those weeks.

Viewings back to back for IAD. A land deal I was chasing before it hit the open market. A tech development project that ran two hours over. And somewhere in the middle of it, an email from another woman in the trade, asking the same question I'd heard a dozen times before.

"Is there actually anywhere round here where I can just talk to people who get it?"

I didn't have an answer for her.

Not because there was nothing out there. There were networking breakfasts. There were construction meetups. There were property investor groups, most of them useful, most of them fine.

But fine isn't the same as right.

The Gap I Kept Noticing

I sit in a strange spot in this industry.

I'm an on-market estate agent with IAD, handling traditional listings and sales. I'm also the founder of 360 Property Hub, sourcing off-market deals before they ever touch the public portals. I've got a long-standing auction partnership with Town & Country Property Auctions, and land is where I spend most of my own headspace.

That means I end up in a lot of rooms. Investor meetups. Agent conferences. Auction previews. Trade breakfasts on building sites at 7am.

And in almost every one of those rooms, the same pattern repeated itself.

Women in property, in construction, in the trades that sit alongside them, were there. They were sharp, capable, doing genuinely impressive work. But they were often one of two or three in the room, half-listening for the moment someone would ask who they were "assisting."

I'm a lifelong advocate for women in business. It's part of why I took on the Tech Lead role for TEDxPorthtowan Women. But watching the same gap show up meeting after meeting, in the industry I actually work in every day, was different. It wasn't a cause anymore. It was a Tuesday.

What I Actually Wanted to Build

Not another generic networking group. Cornwall already has plenty of those, and most of them do a perfectly good job.

What I wanted was somewhere built specifically for women in property, construction and business, a room where you don't have to explain why you're there, where the person next to you might be a site manager, a sourcer, an architect, an investor, or someone six months into their first flip, and none of that needs justifying.

That's the space Hayley Andrews built with Hard Hats to Heels nationally, and it's why I said yes immediately when the chance came to bring it to Cornwall and host it myself.

Not as a side project. As something I genuinely think this county has been missing.

What Hard Hats to Heels Cornwall Actually Is

It's simple, deliberately.

A monthly evening session, Wednesdays at 6pm, running through 2026 and into 2027 already on the calendar. Women in property, construction and business, in one room, without an agenda beyond genuine connection.

No hard sell disguised as "networking." Just the kind of conversation that usually only happens after the official event has ended and everyone's finally being honest with each other — except we start there.

Here's what an evening actually looks like.

Our ladies arrive to a glass of Prosecco and our in-house DJ, Phoenix Fox Lorena, setting the tone for the evening. I welcome everyone and introduce our first speaker, who opens the night with real, practical value, not a sales pitch.

Then there's a proper comfort break, with a professional photographer Lizzie Melvin and our  videographer capturing the room as it naturally is. Our host venue, the NICI Newquay, lays on beautiful food in a setting that does half the work of putting people at ease. Our second speaker takes the floor, and the evening rounds off with networking to music until 9pm.

No rush, no forced small talk. Just good food, good speakers, and enough time in the room to actually get to know someone.

Tickets are £29. That's it. No membership tier, no upsell funnel disguised as a ticket price.

Why I'm Doing This Alongside Everything Else

I didn't get into property to become an event host any more than I got into it to become a PropTech founder.

I got into it because I like solving the actual problem in front of me,  finding the right deal, the right buyer, the right route to market. 360 Property Hub exists because I got tired of watching good opportunities get lost in fragmented WhatsApp groups and five different portals. Hard Hats to Heels Cornwall exists for the same reason, just pointed at people instead of properties.

Sometimes the fix isn't a platform. Sometimes it's just making sure the right people are in the same room.

If You've Been Looking for This Room

If you're in property, construction or business in Cornwall, and you've had that same half-formed thought, is there actually somewhere for people like me? this is your answer.

The 2026–2027 schedule is already set, monthly, every second Wednesday at 6pm. Tickets are £29.

https://hardhatstoheels.co.uk/cornwall 

Come along. Bring the version of yourself that's tired of explaining why you're in the room. That's exactly who this was built for.

Cristina Axford