The Monitor and Insider are members of the Greater Concord Chamber of Commerce, meaning any of the employees are entitled to certain benefits that come with membership, including monthly networking events put on by the Chamber’s Concord Young Professionals Network.
Despite this fact, neither of us had ever been to one of these events before, and since we’ve been in the mood for first-evers lately, we decided to give it a shot.
The monthly meetings take place at all kinds of locations around the city, and last week’s was at Red River Theatres.
The downtown movie house just finished its restoration of the Jaclyn Simchick Memorial Cinema, so this networking event was the perfect opportunity to show it off – the crowd filled up the new space quickly and overflowed into the main lobby area.
The mission was simple: walk around, meet some people, find out why they came, summarize the night.
I got there early – right at the 5:30 p.m. start time. Not many people had showed up yet, save for Elyssa Alfieri, owner of Lilise Designer Resale and former chairwoman and general superfan of the CYPN, who was busy dressing some mannequins in the lobby.
To kill time, I wandered into the new Simchick room to check it out. I was impressed with the swanky feeling in there, and with the tables filled with excellent food lining the room. A cash bar over in the corner provided the beverages.
After about 20 minutes, it started getting pretty busy and I went to make my first connection.
I approached a woman with a name tag reading Casey Head, who was also attending her first CYPN networking event despite having worked at Red River for seven years.
“It was something to do,” she said. “I just started a new position recently, administrative assistant, so I wanted to try to meet some other young professionals.”
Next I ran into Ryan Marcouillier, materials planner at Stonyfield. He had been to several of these before, and he became a fan.
“We’ve made a few friends from these,” he said, admitting that he hadn’t established any concrete business connections through the events.
Then I met Erin Schaick with CATCH Neighborhood Housing. Schaick is on the CYPN steering committee as a member of the events committee, so she helps plan the events.
“We try to create unique opportunities for young professionals,” she said. “And it’s a fun and engaging way to meet people and a fun way to spread the word about your organization, too.”
Before I left, I met Emily Goering and Kate Halsted, both from Hudkins Law. They were both new to the CYPN but were already starting to get comfortable.
“I love them,” Goering said of the networking event, having been to one other CYPN event before. “It’s much easier networking than other ones. . . . And I have met clients through these.”
Halsted was attending her first CYPN event.
“I’m impressed,” she said. “It’s a really easy way to connect with people.”
Since I had no trouble talking to anybody, I’d say everybody was right about that part.
