April Meet and Greet Highlights

From Lenise Andrade, Meet and Greet Committee Co-Chair and Advisory Board member...

I often call myself a ‘Recovering Events Girl.’ I started my career in nonprofits mostly doing event planning, starting with small poetry readings to large sit down dinners for 1000 of my organization’s closest friends. But, after moving to San Diego, I thought my event coordination days were behind me. So, it still surprises me how much fun I have being co-chair of YNPN SD’s Meet & Greet committee.

Emily Bhatti and I have a great time planning the events, getting to know the businesses who are kind enough to host us and coordinating our wonderful committee who all pitch in to make these events such a success. It really is a team effort, as one person will make contact with a venue, someone else will create the email invitation, another volunteer will write a press release for the event, while yet another volunteer will track rsvp’s and registration. Everyone does their part to pitch in, and in the end we are able to create a fun atmosphere for our members to meet and socialize.

Coordinating the last Meet & Greet was especially fun, as we were able to look back on the last year of events. And being at Hard Rock Cafe made it perfect, as we were able to go back to the first venue to ever host us. Once again, the Hard Rock Cafe team was a treat to work worth and provided us with a great space, some delightful food and beverages and a fun atmosphere for all. Thank you to our wonderful event partners for the May Meet and Greet!


It was also great to be there with fellow board and committee members. Just thinking back to the last year, as we’ve come to know each other, as colleagues and as friends, and that it was events like this that made it all happen, made it that much sweeter. Growing YNPN SD has been a lot of work and it was great to celebrate the first anniversary with those who make it happen.

We hope everyone has enjoyed the Meet & Greets so far, but welcome any suggestions for upcoming events. We’re looking into ways to highlight members and their organizations and how to connect those in similar organizations. We’re also looking into ways to connect those looking for jobs right now, as we know how hard that can be, especially in this time. If you have any other ideas, please let us know!

And if you’d like to join the Meet & Greet committee, we’re always accepting applications through the website. Having a variety of volunteers from different organizations and parts of town make the team that much stronger. We do a majority of our work via email and usually have committee members handle just one or two tasks per event. We know how busy everyone is and welcome all the help our team can spare.

You can see a link to pictures here or on our website.

And we have already set the date and location for the next event: June 18th at Basic downtown! More details to come, but for now, save the date and hope to see you there!