Alumni events in full swing across NZ
Three events in a few weeks. Canterbury, Waikato, Manawatū.
Worth recapping — not because anything dramatic happened, but because that's sort of the whole point. The useful stuff at these evenings rarely announces itself. It's a conversation with someone dealing with the same thing you are, or a decision you've been sitting on that moves after talking to the right person.
Road Metals in Canterbury opened their doors first. Being inside a working operation changes things — you can see how someone has built their business, the equipment, the people, the calls they've made over the years sitting behind every corner of the place. It gives everyone something real to react to before the evening has properly started, and the conversations tend to go somewhere more useful as a result.
We also got time with the Family Business Association while we were in Christchurch. The Icehouse and FBA are still relatively new to working together, but spending an evening in the same room made it pretty clear why the overlap exists. They work with family-owned businesses across New Zealand — if you haven't come across them yet, worth looking them up.
Normans Transport hosted in Waikato. Good room, people stayed late, nobody seemed in a rush to leave. There's something about getting a group of people together who are actually in the middle of building something — the conversation finds its own level pretty quickly and you don't have to work hard to keep it going.
Higgins closed things out in Manawatū. Felt like a fairly ordinary evening while it was happening. Then the drive home, and you've got four or five people to follow up with you hadn't expected to. That tends to be the sign of a good one.
Road Metals, Normans Transport, and Higgins — opening your business to a room full of peers takes something, and these evenings don't work without hosts who do it properly. Thank you.
More regional events are coming. Keep an eye on your inbox, or check the programme calendar on the Icehouse website to find one near you.