What a turnout at the Pearl event center!

Wow! What an impressive turnout for the fourth official meeting of the Lake Norman Young Professionals group! We had over 34 people in attendance and many stayed well beyond the standard time enjoying the appetizers that were so graciously provided by Armin's Catering. We would also like to thank The Pearl Event center for hosting us. I have traveled up and down Catawba Avenue hundreds of times and had no idea this place existed. Thanks to this group I'm already getting exposure to new businesses and learning more about the area.

Chaz starting things off

Chaz started things off with a quick introduction about the groups purpose and creation and settled in on a vision statement for the group of: "So that connected young professionals will be positively impacted and positively impact the world." I think this message resonated with many members in attendance and we look forward to hearing your "so that" stories in the future.

After a round of quick introductions from committee members and our board representative, Chaz played a motivational video that really inspired the crowd and prepped the room for some motivated networking! Chaz challenged all of us to go out and talk to people we didn't know and start building relationships amongst each other.

The Young Professionals group is also still soliciting volunteers to help the individual committees. By all means if you have a good idea please share it! We're really depending on the engagement and energy from the group to help drive this forward. 

Just to recap here is the existing leadership structure for the group and the respective committees listed below:

Program Chair: Chaz Churchwell
Board Representative: Mike Murphy
Staff Advisor: Bill Russell
Community Involvement Chair: Laurel Shea
Professional Development Chair: John Sheehan
Member Engagement Chair: Shayna Inman

If you have any experience in community outreach or involvement, professional development or member services please let us know.

Back to the event. I met all sorts of new people and had some very interesting conversations. Here are some of the highlights to give you an example of the diversity in our group:

• I met someone who came all the way from Statesville and works in professional development. He also does Linkedin coaching. Having a solid presence on professional websites is arguably just as important as your resume itself.
  
• I met a Huntersville native (believe it or not I don't meet many natives here) who works in finance and was able to tell me what Birkdale Village looked like back when it was a farm. Sometimes I feel a little guilty that I'm part of the wave of people that had an impact or justified growth in this area. That's one of the reasons I feel it's important we take an active role in helping this community.
  
• I met a Davidson grad from Bucharest who now works as a local journalist and is teaching himself how to code.
  
• I found the person who is going to help me plan my next vacation! <- I think that's the most important connection of the evening :-)

I hope to see you at our next event which will be held at Kabuto Lake Norman on February 10th at 7pm. We would appreciate it if you RSVP'd ahead of time to help us get a better idea of headcount. I have included a gallery of photos from last night and I hope you enjoy them. 


Until next time,

-Mike Murphy

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Photo gallery of the event