Thursday, July 28, 2011

{ i d e a } The home 'boardroom' lunch!

Hi,

I woke this morning with an idea I would love to get off the ground! Tell me what you think/ if you can join me to 'make it happen'.

I, like you have been inspired by the lovely people I am connecting with via my blog & facebook page - those in their own business - either startup, early growth or want to start one  (Hi Steph, Lisa, Caroline, Nancy, Alexx, Naomi, Kirralee, Melinda, Alice to name a few). We all seem to be in similar stage of life (mostly mums) & business and to be honest are smart & savvy & I suspect crave to meet like minded people.

As we work from home we do so much online & yes it is a great world, but we quickly loose contact with the 'other world', so my idea is to take advantage of our 'fortunate' setup and share a little more 'in person' to help us & our biz grow. Of course there are the networking groups, and industry functions but i am thinking wouldn't it be good to have an intimate 'biz' lunch - aka the board room lunch but at home!

I'd host a lunch for 10-12 of us with good food & wine & we could talk biz!  What better place could there be....our home, the hub of our world, where the food is great (i'll be cooking so maybe we'll make that judgement later), the room creative (yes you can also see how i set myself up) & maybe, depending on how the idea develops I get a sitter to ensure you can get here. (my little Ciara has to go to pre-school 12.30 to 3.30 so I will need help!)

This is the start of what I hope will be a good idea! We need to flesh it out a bit more & I don't know if you live in Sydney (I do - 8 mins from the Harbour Bridge) but if you do, let's start the ball rolling and create a great 'home biz lunch event'. Topics? Timing? Guest list, friend invites, 'screening/criteria' etc

Would be best to keep the discussion in one place ie here but i will put detail on FB too ...let's just see how it takes shape and then I will co-ordinate ideas, & confirm details via email.

Warm regards,
Cindy
cindy@lukbeautifood.com

Where we would have our biz lunch event!





5 comments:

Kirralee @ Escape With Kids said...

Hi Cindy What a beautiful generous idea! And hi to you too! What a stunning house you have. I would be thrilled to meet you and be part of a like-minded group. I'm not sure how you would decide who to invite. I think Shae Tye from sleepy wings would be an awesome inclusion (not that I've met her IRL yet!) but I think she still works corporate a few days a week. I have dedicated business days when my kids are in childcare/preschool so am pretty flexible on mon, tue and thu. Love to see how this develops xx

Julia Bickerstaff said...

Love it!

Cindyluken said...

Good morning ladies :)

Fab, looks like we have a seed of an idea that will shoot! There are comments in both FB & on my blog so I will copy & past this message in both!

Interested parties are Caroline, Alexx, Kirralee & Julia (? guessing you love the idea but too busy. LOL !)

My next steps:
1) I will send a few messages out to others people I have me via our virtual world that i know would love to attend and see how we go on numbers. 10 would be good for #1. Kirralee - Shae sounds lovely - can you intro her to me?

2) Prepare a run sheet, inc menu & discussion format. Timing: start at 11.30 drinks (yes please Luxury Tastings- Alexx I have a very groovy 1950's bar!) 12.30 sit down - entree, main, dessert/coffee. Finish 2pm (thinking school collections!) Does this sound OK?

3) Date. Tuesday's sounds good to me - how about we kick off August 9th? Caroline - could this work for you. Failing the 9th, anyone prefer the 16th.

4) Think about future lunches, facilitation of discussion. eg monthly, who invited, background on each of us, 'special guest"? etc

Really hoping this will 'sprout' & grow. It's better than organising a dinner party! Gosh i love work/meeting interesting people!

Have a great day

Cindy

Melinda said...

Oooh, yes please, what a great idea! Have been lamenting to Steph recently that amongst all the benefits of working from home/for yourself, the one downside is the social and mental isolation from likeminded people! And would be lovely to meet you in "real life". PS I am a great kitchenhand so can help with prep :o)

Diana said...

Hi Cindy,
As mentioned, I love the idea of a boardroom lunch. I'm just in the very early stages of setting up a new career for myself after 20 years in the financial markets. So in terms of discussion points, I'd love to see opportunity for some kind of pitch that lays out our business (or ideas!), perhaps along the lines of the below questions:

Competition: What else is out there doing something similar, and why is this better?:
Business: How will it/does it earn money?:
Innovation: What's new and innovative or different about this business/idea?:
People: Who are the founders and what experience and skills do they bring to this project?:
Status: How far along are you with your business/ idea?

cheers
Diana