Minton marks International Women's Day with a tea party
Ahead of the 114th International Women's Day, Minton Law Firm held a tea party for its women staff on the theme of enjoying yourself and coming together. The meeting room was turned into a spring garden, with mango and strawberry cream cakes and a set of gourd-shaped embroidered sachets carrying wishes for peace, health and prosperity. The event was a thank-you for the staff's work and a mark of the firm's regard for its women lawyers, who set aside their files for an afternoon.
In the warm light of March, Minton Law Firm held a tea party for all of its women staff on the theme of "enjoying yourself and coming together", ahead of the 114th International Women's Day. The meeting room, usually so orderly, became a spring garden, and the firm's lawyers put aside their files and cases for an afternoon of cakes, conversation and celebration.
The tables became a corner of sweetness: a mango cake covered in golden fruit, a strawberry cream cake studded with red berries, and small cube-shaped desserts in a range of colours. The women staff sat together and shared them, and the afternoon passed in easy conversation.
A further surprise added to the day: the firm prepared gourd-shaped embroidered sachets in a range of designs, embroidered with the words "peace", "health" and "prosperity", for staff to choose and wear. The red, blue and orange colourways drew the eye, and the blessing the gourd carries prompted some discussion of its origins: the word for gourd sounds like the words for fortune and prosperity, and Song dynasty scholars often wore sachets of medicinal herbs to stay alert, which suits the working life of a lawyer.
Having chosen a sachet, the lawyers hung them on briefcases, pinned them among the plants at their desks, or posted photographs of the day on social media: one wrote that the firm's "unexpected romance" had caught her, another that "the sugar level in the meeting room is over the limit today, but happiness needs no calorie count".
Over the food and the conversation, shared habits at work and stories from daily life came up, and the camera caught the smiles of the afternoon. The tea party was a thank-you for the women staff's contribution and a mark of how much the firm values it.
At Minton Law Firm, its women lawyers bring professionalism and responsibility to their work.
The firm will keep working together, and will hold on to the ability to make an occasion of things along the way.