It’s so crazy to believe, but my current mentoring circle from Women In Film has been meeting for 4 years now! I knew that this group of women was special when we were actually able to meet between our meetings with our mentors, but I had no clue that we’d be able to continue the group after that first year ended. But it turned out that we bonded together as a group a bit more than we bonded with our mentors so it makes sense that we have kept things up.
While we have been meeting for 4 years, things have changed a few times. When we started, we technically met every month since we met with our mentors every other month and then on our own for the alternate months. And when we started meeting on our own after that first year, we continued to meet every other month since that was the routine that we got used to. But as time has gone one, most of us have gotten busier (which is a good thing) and it’s been harder to meet up. So at the end of last year, we decided to change things up so that we now meet every 3 months so we see each other 4 times a year.
Our first meeting of 2019 was this past weekend and we had our traditional brunch at Rush St. which has been our brunch place for a while now. We almost always get one of the booths, and that works perfectly for our group to feel like we have our own little meeting space and not in the middle of a busy restaurant.
When our mentoring group started, we had a few more members than we currently have. But I understand that continuing with the group wasn’t for everyone and that’s pretty much what happened with my first group that never met outside of our few meetings with our mentors. But we still have almost everyone in the group and we work hard to try to make the meetings we have. This time, we were missing 2 people, but I know they tried hard to make it and there were just circumstances that prevented them from being able to be there.
I’ve said in the past few recaps of my brunches with my group that I haven’t had a ton of news to share but I loved hearing what everyone else has been up to. This brunch was the same. My biggest news was about how it is going to be election season soon for SAG-AFTRA and that I’m more involved in my slate than I have in the past. Nothing about that is too exciting, but I know they are important things and something that not everyone is doing. I wish I could tell them amazing news about booking jobs or amazing auditions, but those just aren’t happening for me right now. I’ve had auditions, but they are nothing spectacular or unusual so I don’t really feel like sharing about those.
But as always, everyone else had amazing updates and hearing about them was the highlight of brunch for me. I’ve never really been the type of person to compare my journey to someone else’s, so I can just get joy out of seeing the steps that everyone else has been taking. And they have been doing some really amazing things that have been getting closer to reality. And one of the benefits of being a part of this group for so long is that I have been able to see the long game with everyone’s journey. One member of our group is getting close to the play she has written being on Broadway. And when we started as a group she had just produced a reading in LA and we have been getting updates about readings in NY, finding a producer and director, and now finding investors. It’s so amazing and I couldn’t be happier for her.
Because this play has been in the works for so long and the finish line seems so close, I think everyone in the group can’t wait to find out that it will be premiering on Broadway. We’ve been joking that we will all have to have a meeting in NY when that happens because of course we all want to be there. And maybe if it happens in a year we can celebrate the start of our 5th year together as a group by seeing the show premiere. But even if that doesn’t happen, it’s so fun to dream about doing that together.
While I would love to have more and better updates when the group meets again in May, I’m not going to worry about it too much. I just have to keep working hard and I know the results will happen eventually. And when they do happen, I don’t doubt that the group will be just as happy for me as I have always been for them with their amazing news!
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Finally Seeing My Mentoring Group Again (or Our First Brunch Of 2020)
Mentoring Circle (or Women Who Support Each Other)
Last Mentoring Group Brunch For The Year (or Switching Things Up For Next Year)
Meeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority)
