FOCUS ON: Women's Networking Committee

Evaleon Hill

NJCCA's Women's Networking Committee offers programs of interest and benefit to women as well as to a diverse range of NJCCA members. Recent programs include Going Green (on corporate sustainability,) Estate Planning for Modern Families, and Unwritten Rules: What You Don't Know Can Hurt Your Career.

The group holds 3-5 events a year which attract up to 100 attendees per program. The Women's Networking Committee is unique to this ACC chapter and pre-dated the New Jersey Women's Law Association and the New Jersey Small Business Association's women's group. It also began the first outreach programs at NJCCA and continues to provide charitable opportunities at its programs. Dress for Success, Toys for Tots (with attendant Marines) and Nike Reuse a Shoe are three of many.

The group meets several times a year over pleasant dinners to brainstorm topics of interest. Since our focus is building community through networking, we practice what we preach amongst ourselves. We have developed long term relationships with each other and with our sponsors. In many cases we work with a law firm's Women's Initiative and in one instance actually launched a firm's Women's Initiative with our program.

The Women's Networking Committee likes to vary its events, so that NJCCA members can look forward to something different each time. Some programs feature well-known speakers (such as New York Times writer Lisa Belkin), others are formatted as expert panel discussions, while still others offer something completely out of the box, such as “Creative Entertaining for the Busy Professional: an Interactive Cooking Demonstration.”

We favor both substance and creativity and never allow ourselves to get into a rut.

It remains to be seen how the advent of NJ CLE requirements will affect our programming. Our last two events offered CLE credits but our commitment to diverse subject matter may not always make CLE credit feasible.

Our next program is Organizing from the Inside Out, sponsored by Lowenstein Sandler, and featuring time management expert Julie Morgenstern on October 26. Save the date! .

If you are interested in joining this committee, kindly contact the chair, Evaleon Hill, at evaleon.hill@yahoo.com or 732-766-2701.