SFBA President Video Letter April 2021

Happy April and welcome to Springtime, everyone! Kristen Seaholm here, your WIPA San Francisco Bay Area President, serving the greater Northern California region. We have had a lot of statewide updates over the past couple of weeks so let’s go ahead and chat about those real quick. As you may already be aware, on April 2nd, Governor Newsom finally released tiered event guidelines. If you have not already reviewed these, please refer to the link within my transcript, as this will be an incredibly helpful tool as we all begin to safely reopen for events.

To then follow that welcomed update, about a week later, Governor Newsom also announced a goal of fully reopening the state of California by June 15th, assuming we keep along the current trajectory. Now, as exciting as this is, we must remember that this does not mean that events are reopening to pre-covid times. Quite the contrary, actually. If anything, the current misleading messaging is only going to make it harder on each and every one of us when communicating to our clients about covid-safe system and procedures for their upcoming event, as we will be the only line of defense in incorporating these safe practices. I encourage you all to mentally prepare yourselves now as the onslaught of inquiries begin rolling in. And again, I highly encourage you to refer to the tiered blueprint I mentioned above, to help guide you in best practices.

Okay, now, for the fun stuff!

Even though we haven’t been able to host any in-person events yet, that doesn’t mean we haven’t been busy. In March, NY WIPA rockstar Priya Kumar of Premini Events came and virtually hung out with us and we had the best conversation all about the resilient hustle. It was such a great collaborative experience with our listeners and we are so truly thankful for Priya taking the time. Learn more about this webinar, how you can access the video in case you missed it, and what else we have coming up later this month by checking out our events section below, put together by our fabulous Director of Programs, Laura Brezel.

In addition, we also just hosted our very first Safety Open Forum, a brand new free offering from WIPA San Francisco Bay Area for members and non-members alike, through Zoom and Facebook Live. And, given the current events I just mentioned, our Director of Education Diana Cardenas recommends catching up on this Safety Talk in case you missed out, and I couldn’t agree more. Be sure to check out Diana’s Education section for all this incredibly helpful information and how you can rewatch this short and helpful video.

From there, definitely check out Chanda Daniels part on Diversity & Inclusion for the month. Chanda is helping to introduce us to such a fabulous resource and I just think it is going to help move the conversation forward so much, across so many levels! I am happy to report that your San Francisco Bay Area board is working on planning one of these fabulous dinners right now and I seriously cannot wait to report back on it. Super stoked on this and highly encourage you all to learn more and plan one for yourself, your team, friends, family, whoever you can. Thank you so much for introducing this to us, Chanda

Also, our Community Service Director, Gina Shrewsberry has been equally as busy. Be sure to see what Gina’s been up to and what awesome non-profit we are looking to partner with, and how your business can partake as well.

Now, taking back to Covid Safety again real quick, Governor Newsom has been keeping our Safety Expert, Maggie Panontin-Young incredibly busy, as you can imagine. She has a slew of updates for you to check out. And also, put it on your calendar now for our 2nd Safety Open Forum Talk, taking place on Thursday April 22nd, at 9 am. These Safety Chats will be taking place every other Thursday on the WIPA SFBA Facebook Live, for the foreseeable future, so we look forward to seeing you there where participation is welcomed and encouraged.

Heading into one of my favorite pieces of the newsletter, be sure to check out everything there is to know about our April Membership Spotlight, the very talented Sania Birla, of Saba Décor Rentals, presented by our very own Victoria Vaden. We absolutely love highlighting our members and the stellar businesses you represent. So, if you haven’t yet, please do fill out our spotlight survey so we can showcase your fabulous work to the world.

Also, don’t forget that our #WIPAWIN contest has officially launched! We want to hear from you and your safe events! Friendly reminder that quarterly winners will win some super fresh WIPA swag and the grand prize winner, to be announced at the end of the year, will win a free WIPA SFBA membership, valued at $300. We love seeing you post about all the amazing work you have going on and we really want to be a platform that helps promote you as well, so be sure to check out the rules on Instagram and we look forward to seeing who wins!

Lastly, to take it home, if you aren’t already, please make sure you’re following and engaging with us through our social channels IG: @wipasf FB: https://www.facebook.com/WIPABAYAREA/ And from there, thanks for taking the time to hang out with me today. I look forward to catching up with you more next month and at all of our upcoming events in between. Have a good one!

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