Despite the crazy weather, we pushed on with our December meeting yesterday and enjoyed a greek dinner afterwards.
One of the items we resolved to move forward with was a MSVU Toronto Alum Dinner with 12 Strangers program, which I referred to in a previous post.
Simple idea: arrive for dinner as 12 strangers, leave with a lasting connection.
Dinner with 12 Strangers is a simple program that many alumni associations and universities have adopted all over the world. I believe the award winning program started at UCLA. The alumni organisations at U of T and NorthWestern also support programs. In fact, there seem to be dozens of similar initiatives: read more here.
We would like to have at least two "Dinners" in Toronto between now and our next Alumnae Association meeting, April 6th. If you are interested in attending, hosting or co-hosting a Dinner, please leave a comment here or email me at mgcayley (@) hotmail (dot) com.
We will have one Dinner west of Yonge Street, the other east. Venue will be neutral turf - i.e. a resturant will be selected that is convenient for the attendees. So far we do not have a sponsor for the program, so everyone will be asked to cover their own costs of the meal.
Marie Ann Skomorowski is organising West of Yonge & Michael Cayley is doing the first one east of Yonge. You can attend either one.
Be sure to click on all of the links above for more information about how and why these Dinners are so successful.
It is obvious that your MSVU alumnae network in Toronto offers you the potential of a "bonding" kind of networking experience. A chance to connect with others who have similar experiences. What may not be as obvious is that research into social networking tells us that investments that we make with our time and energy into "loose links", i.e., those more diverse connections that may seem to be less obviously a social match are often the investments that yield the most value. Check out this paper for the hard theory if you are interested.
It makes sense - if you are just talking to friends who graduated from the same years and/or programs, you are likely all feeding off of the same information and experiences. Once you start to connect across time and experience, really interesting outcomes can be expected.
If you are interested in being a contributing author to this blog, please leave a comment and we will be in touch!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment