My Women In Film mentoring circle had another one of our potluck gatherings at my house. While I love when we get together on the alternating months with our mentors, I really look forward to the mentee only meetings.
Since it’s been hot here (and I don’t have a/c), I put together food for the potluck that required no extra heat in my house. Trader Joes saves my butt in these circumstances. They have great cheese selections and the meats and crackers are good too. The crackers were half-broken when I opened the box, but I tried my best to make the tray look as pretty as possible.
I think a lot of us had the same idea because so many things that were brought were pre-made. We had wine, some chocolate, potatoes salad, and regular salad. It made a nice little spread for us. But that’s fine with us since we are there for the company and not the food.
And yes, the point of these gatherings is to network, discuss our goals, talk about the progress we’ve made, and encourage each other. And we do that for a while. We set a time limit for everyone to talk so we all get a chance to talk, and the “business” conversation took a little over an hour.
I talked about some of my frustrations I’m going through including wanting to get back into improv classes. I’ve almost got all the money saved up, but the schedule of upcoming classes doesn’t really fit into my schedule. I mentioned how I hadn’t had any auditions in the past month, but that really doesn’t worry me. And of course I talked about how I’m running in the SAG-AFTRA election (although since none of the women in my circle are in the union they can’t vote for me).
And after that, we kind of just had fun together. I really love this. I’ve made some wonderful new friends and I feel encouraged that we will continue to meet (maybe not as regularly) after the officially mentoring circle has ended. I love that we have really bonded as a group and we really look out for each other and want the best for each of us to have in our careers.
I actually saw one of the board members of Women In Film at my Sunday job this past week and got a few minutes to talk to her. I told her how grateful I am to have this new mentoring circle and how we have really connected as a group. She seemed really happy to hear that our mentoring circle is doing so well. Many groups sound similar to how my old group was (not meeting regularly), so our group is in the minority with our motivated we are with setting our meetings.
We should be having our next meeting with our mentors next month (hopefully I’ll have more to update by then). And I’m looking forward to that. But I’m really looking forward to the next mentee only meeting where we can sit back, relax, and really just talk and support each other.
You Might Also Like
Another Evening Of Mentees (or Advice and Socializing)
End Of The Mentoring Circle (or One Final Lunch)
Meeting My Mentoring Circle (or Being In The Minority)
Getting Ready To Get Mentored Again (or A Evening With WIF)
Another Meeting of Mentees (Social Hour and Not Business Hour)
Last Official Mentee Meeting (or Planning For 2016)
