Hi friends,
No card today, but I wanted to share with you about an event this past weekend.
When I JOINED Stampin' Up! nearly 16 years ago, it was "for the discount" on the fabulous products. While I do still LOVE the products (and the discount!) the reason STAY with Stampin' Up! is the people.
Over the past couple of years our Stampin' Up! corporate events have been virtual - no gathering in-person with the friends I've made over the years. No conventions, no trips, etc. I have really missed seeing my people!
This August, Stampin' Up! was finally able to run an in-person event again, yay! But it was overseas - in New Orleans! Although I really wanted to go, I just couldn't manage an overseas trip at this time. Luckily for us, they recorded most of the sessions and we were able to purchase the recordings instead. This event was a "leadership" style event, not a crafting event. So lots of the content was motivational, things to help in our business, things to help us with our teams of demonstrators etc.
I decided to invite other Demonstrator Leaders (who also didn't go to New Orleans) to watch the content together - much more fun than by yourself at home on your computer where there are so many other things to distract you and take up your time.
After a LOT of research - emails, phone calls, visiting hotels, I finally found a great venue at an affordable cost for our event.
We gathered on Saturday in a gorgeous room at the Treasury Brisbane and spent the whole day together catching up, watching great sessions, having discussions, and eating lots of food! Having this event in a beautiful room and watching the sessions on a huge screen and being together helped us alleviate some of the FOMO (fear of missing out) that we'd had at not being able to go to New Orleans. The catering was amazing and we felt very spoiled.
It really filled my cup to see everyone's happy faces and hear how happy they were to be invited to spend this time together learning and growing. It was lovely to see their enthusiasm for this event, with several people travelling long distances, even interstate, to be together.
Thank you to Chrissy for making these nifty little event badges for everyone - usually at a Stampin' Up! event you receive a badge/pin to commemorate the event.
Thank you also to Anna for these amazing name tags. The back slides off to allow you to take the message out of the bottom and ready it - how clever! Each name tag had a different message in the bottle.
We were lucky to have our wonderful Demonstrator Development Manager, Emma, come all the way from New Zealand to be with us as well.
Of course it's not about the gifts, I was just happy to organise it so that we could be together, but they sneakily organised a thank you for me in the form of a gift voucher to show their appreciation of my efforts in organising the day. Thank you Anna for organising that, and thank you Emma for the other goodies I received from you too.
By the end of the day our hearts and minds were full and we went out to dinner together to celebrate a great day and enjoy each other's company.
Next year the Leadership event (called Back Stage) will be held in Las Vegas - all going well, I plan to be there in person! Woo hoo!
Can't wait to see even more of my friends at the next Stampin Up event this year in November in Sydney too.
