From the President’s Keyboard

That’s it – we have dived into another Autumn season with lots of events to spark your creativity, get you connected with like-minded business women and culminating with a splash of a party in early December where we’ll celebrate our 10 YEAR’S ANNIVERSARY and of course, Christmas.

As previously advertised, late June saw the light of the carefully planned EuropeanPWN Annual General meeting, which I was honored to host. Thanks to a fantastic effort from Sophie le Brozec and Ingrid Loren we offered a smooth event that was highly appreciated by our European colleagues. The Thursday night ‘Nuits Blanches’ at a beach restaurant in Nice was a big hit amongst our foreign guests, members and new-bees alike.

The meetings themselves took place at the smart and efficient premises of Team Côte d’Azur, our generous hosts. As for the AGM content, it soon became apparent that we are at an exciting turning point for the Network. Having enjoyed a fantastic growth we are now challenged to review our structure to make it adapt to 18+ city networks and give us the ability to bring on-board new city networks with due-diligence and efficiency.

The AGM decided to appoint a Task Force to review Bylaws, suggest an enhanced leadership structure and create a more formal election process. So, together with the 6 other members of the Task Force, I have had the pleasure of trawling through legal documents, carrying out benchmarking, and participating in hours of conference calls over the Summer… but not least: exchanging with and learning from some pretty smart and inspiring women!

Voila! Now you are up to speed on the European developments – read on for a more local flavor…

I look forward to hopefully seeing you at some event or other,

Susanne Forsman-Hey

Photo credit: Rebecca Marshall

Upcoming events

See full description and registration details on the Calendar.

Saturday October 10th – Mentoring Skills and Matching, St. Laurent du Var
All mentors and mentees are invited to learn some of the basic skills that enable a successful relationship and/or meet other members of the programme over a relaxing lunch.

Thursday October 15th – Goal Setting Review, Sophia Antipolis
Engage in the Scaling Walk, an imaginative, interactive exercise designed to help you re-evaluate your goals, assess the progress you’ve made so far and identify the next few important steps towards your desired outcome. This workshop is open to members and guests – anyone who defined some goals earlier in the year.

Thursday November 5th – Focusing on Solutions, St. Laurent du Var
Photini Papatheodorou will introduce us to Solutions Focus, a different, positive approach to personal and professional development. Packed with lively, interactive exercises, this workshop promises to help us achieve positive results both for today and the long term.

Thursday November 19th – Creativity, Innovation and Change, Sophia Antipolis
Every business needs to stay competitive and innovate their offer. How to support creativity and innovation for yourself, your team and your business is the topic of this workshop which will be conducted by Barbara Wilson.

Friday December 4th – 10 year Anniversary, Sophia Antipolis
Our annual Christmas parties always prove to be very successful. This year we will be Celebrating our 10 year anniversary. Members and guests, please book this date in your diary now and join us for a fun networking evening.

Suggestion

Happy with the content and events the Network puts on? Or perhaps not? Why not talk to one of the Board members about how you can pitch in going forward? We’re always delighted to get ideas – and women to carry them out!

Photo credit: Rebecca Marshall

Recap of recent Events

Over the last four months we’ve held a number of events:


June 25th – Meet the European Presidents, Lido Plage, Nice
June 27th – Myers Briggs Workshop, Novotel CAP3000, St. Laurent du Var
July 9th – Reinventing Yourself, Novotel CAP3000, St. Laurent du Var
July 23rd – Cocktail, Les Terrasses, Sophia Antipolis
September 8th – How to Brainstorm, Mercure, Sophia Antipolis
September 24th – Introduction to Mentoring, Mercure, Sophia Antipolis
October 1st – Market yourself and Create your Value Prop, Mercure Sophia Antipolis


A short write up of most of the events can be found here

Networking works

Christine Sweeney, Karen Marsh and Rachel Wattel all met through the EuropeanPWN and are now collaborating to make the exhibition GET A NEW OUTLOOK! – The Career and Lifestyle Exhibition for Women on the Riviera a success. Christine is the mastermind behind the event, Karen’s company VBA International is providing organizational support and Rachel is involved in the PR and marketing. The event is being held in Sophia Antipolis on Tuesday 10th November. For further information please see www.career-and-lifestyle.com.

New Members

Anne Pilling

Anne’s professional career has been rich and varied and continues to change. She is currently licensed by Susan Jeffers, to facilitate “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway®” workshops. This is quite different from her regular work of Counseling, using a holistic approach to health and well being. After training as a nurse and studying psychiatry, she spent 5 years as a Commissioned Officer in an Army Nursing Corps. This gave her a wonderful opportunity to live in Germany and Hong Kong, plus learn to sail and ski and try gliding. Life took a different turn in 1986 when she began her training in the USA in Addictions Recovery. In 2001 Anne came to Nice.

Karima Ousgane

Karima was born and grew up in sunny Casablanca before moving to France to pursue her studies. She recently graduated from two leading telecommunications schools in France. Karima already has one year of work experience with one of the top consultant cabinets in France (Solucom Group) as a junior IT consultant and with Amadeus as a product definition analyst .

Karima enjoys watching movies, traveling and meeting new people. She is currently on a trip around Scandinavia before starting her career.

Mentoring – letter from the Programme Leader

I am very excited to introduce you to a new team of Mentoring Angels & a new Mentoring Programme 2009/2010.

Before doing so I would like to thank Photini Papatheodorou and especially Julia Haston for all their work last year. As a team we organized 2 introductory events, 1 matching and mentoring skills workshop and 2 skills workshops on Goal Setting and Dealing with Emotions/Giving Feedback. We published 2 Mentoring newsletters and created a Mentoring Flyer. 8 mentoring pairs representing about 20% of our membership made use of the programme and the help of us Mentoring Angels to further their professional development and achieve results.

This year we have the biggest team of Mentoring Angels ever. Six ladies with a lot of experience and enthusiasm for mentoring: Ines O’Donovan, Patti-Ann McNeill, Julia Haston, Wendy Buckley and Linda Hough (from left to right on the photo). Gabriella Colombo plans to join the team once she moves back to the Nice area.

With this new team we will take the programme to an even higher level. For the Mentoring year 2009/2010 we have planned for you:

• Mentoring survey to identify your needs & interest in different types of mentoring relationships such as group mentoring and ’30 minute mentoring’
• 2 Introduction to Mentoring sessions
• 3 mentoring skills workshops
• A Mentoring Angel for each mentoring pair who can provide support in case of questions and problems
• Update of the Mentoring webpages on www.EuropeanPWN-Nice.net

• Active use of the EuropeanPWN Nice-CdA Mentoring platform/forum on www.EuropeanPWN.net to exchange experiences, documents, references to books and articles around mentoring etc .

We are looking forward to seeing you at one of our next events.

Ines O’Donovan
Mentoring Programme Leader

Special Interest Groups

With the growth of the network members are requesting regular follow up events on some of the topics we’ve covered in workshops. This quarter we’re planning sessions on:

• Elevator Pitching
• Goals

• Brainstorming

If you’re interested in organizing an event like this then please contact a member of the board.

EuropeanPWN in the News

Women on the move in Europe

In June we organized the Annual General Meeting of the Presidents of the EuropeanPWN city networks.
Invest Côte d’Azur – Women on the move in Europe

Interview with Susanne Forsman-Hey
Côte d’Azur / Sophia Antipolis Business News – 3 questions to Susanne Forsman-Hey

From the European Arena

“As part of the EuropeanPWN – IE Business School platinum level partnership, IE (formerly Instituto de Empresa and ranked in the 10 best business schools worldwide) looks forward to welcoming 8-10 of our active members into one of their numerous masters programs for 2010 and 2011.

Please contact Susanne Forsman-Hey directly for more information (don’t delay – submission deadlines are imminent).

Watch the BBC programme featuring EuropeanPWN Board member Annalisa Gigante at A Woman’s place is in the Board Room!

Do not hesitate to consult the FAQ Quick Guidelines for optimizing your use of our EuropeanPWN platform. Just click on FAQ in the left hand menu when you have logged in.

This year’s W.I.N. GLOBAL LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE, is being held from 8-10 October in Prague. For further details see www.winconference.net

Special Offers

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course
New member Alison Prudeaux extends the following offer to EuropeanPWN: The 8 week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course starting on Oct 17th in Antibes – “2 for the price of one” for EPWN members. This is the largest and best known stress reduction course in the world recommended by MDs for depression and stress related problems. For more information, please consult www.mindfulnessfrance.com

Cross Border ITIM Workshop
Member Barbara Sumner is offering free tuition to EuropeanPWN members :

More and more we are called upon to work and live in a globalized world. For 2 days we will learn and practice skills to make it easier and even more fun. Several free places are available for a Cross-Border ITIM workshop in Juan-les-Pins (Hotel Helios) Oct. 29-30 (Thurs.-Fri.). Hotel/lunch costs are 55 euros per day. To cover materials I ask 50 euros. The tuition (1,690 euros) is free. More details upon request barbara.sumner@wanadoo.fr or 0494-390477


Theatre Tickets
The ‘boutique’ Princess Grace Theatre in Monaco offers a 10% discount on ticket reservations of 20 or more. Contact Allan Blackburn at ajblackb@monaco.mc.