 MIX AND MINGLE: Toronto Business Casual’s president and social director Tanya May presides over a bar full of happy faces during a meet-up her company held for young professionals.
It’s a cold Thursday night at Yonge and Eglinton, but over 100 people have crammed into Mezza Misto bistro to get the answers to these questions.
They’re there for the inaugural event of Toronto Business Casual, a midtown based social networking club for young professionals.
Describing the concept as a meet-up group for career people between 25–40 years of age, president and social director Tanya May says she and her business partners wanted to offer members the chance to develop social connections, both personal and professional.
“Our goal is to bridge the gap between their career and having a personal life,” May says.
The group is different from other social groups, she says, because it focuses on creating activities that encourages interaction. Hence the icebreaker questions at the first event.
Monthly events, averaging $20–30 a shot, focus on cultural group activities like learning a new language, participating in a literary discussion, and sightseeing in historical urban locations. Right now membership is free until the summer after which it will cost around $100 a year.
May and her husband Dennis Kar conceived of the idea a few years ago, after moving back to Toronto and finding many of their friends had married and had children or just moved on.
“We found it to be quite isolating to be back in Toronto,” she says. They couldn’t afford to join a private club – some cost upwards of $20,000 a year, she says – and they had tried other meet-up groups that didn’t really work for them.
Many lacked screening mechanisms, she says, meaning that a bunch of mismatched people with different backgrounds and interests showed up to events.
“I didn’t feel I was making any personal connections,” May says of her experience.
That’s why Toronto Business Casual is geared towards professionals with a college or university educations and includes questions about it on the online membership form online at <a href="http://www.torontobusinesscasual.com" target="_blank">www.torontobusinesscasual.com</a>.
Jeff Sinclair, a Toronto-area professional who attended the first event, says he found the professional angle appealing.
“To be honest that was the number one attraction to me.”
Other groups charge you a higher fee just to sit around a table and drink beer, he says. “They could probably have charged double than that.”
Lisa Lee attended the event on her own and says she met some interesting people with diverse backgrounds.
The 36-year-old says many of her friends have married or moved away and she’s looking to meet new people.
“It’s so difficult,” she says. “Priorities have changed.”
But for Lee, having a formal education wasn’t important. As long as people were working towards a goal she says she wasn’t concerned with what piece of paper they came with.
“I couldn’t care less if you have a PhD.”
May says the concept has been so well-received she may need to rethink her day job as a speech pathologist.
She and her partners were originally thinking the business would be a hobby on the side, she says, but the first event sold out quickly and the second one in March, “Memoirs of Tokyo,” is already selling well.
|
|
Do you have something to say about this article? click here
Twitter
Also in the News
Our Readers' Feedback ( 0 )
Publication © Multimedia Nova Corporation 2010 |