The European Professional Women’s Network and Connecting Women are organising the next:

‘EPWN/CW Hague Japanese Buffet Dinner’
Friday (!!) 24 February 2012, 19:00-22:00
at ‘Yon’ – in Scheveningen

Dear ladies,

This month we would like to do something different – as it is half term in February and people may not be available on a Tuesday night, we have changed the Tuesday night Hague Borrel this month to a Friday night Hague Japanese Buffet Dinner.

We would like to invite you to this EPWN/CW Hague Japanese Buffet Dinner, which will take place at Lunchroom YON, on Friday 24 February 2012 from 19:00-22:00. We would like to emphasize that everybody is welcome, membership is not required.

Yet another great opportunity for meeting other women, networking and exchanging views about work/life in The Netherlands. And remember that everybody is welcome, membership is not required.

We all enjoyed our Hague Borrel at Lunchroom YON last month, so we are very happy to return to this location. Lunchroom Yon is situated at the Badhuisweg in Scheveningen, which offers free parking and it’s at walking distance from tram stop Madurodam (tram 9). They are not only known for their lunch, but they also offer Sunday brunch and on Friday evenings there is a Japanese buffet, for which we are inviting you! Also, Yon is an excellent location for borrels, parties and private dining. For more information, please check their website www.yon-noy.nl or send an email to yonscheveningen@live.nl.
Cost and registration
The cost of the Japanese Buffet is €17,50 per person. This special rate will entitle you to the Japanese Buffet, please note that drinks are NOT included this time.

Please make sure you register your attendance (either as a member or as a guest) via the EPWN website (here click register in the header). Alternatively, you can send an email to Erika at erika@bothassistanceandsupport.nl.

Please also don’t forget to de-register if you are not able to make it after all!
We need to confirm the number of attendees with the restaurant 24 hours in advance. When pre-registered people do not show up, this puts us in a difficult position, as the restaurant has prepared food for more people.

Directions to the venue
This restaurant, Lunchroom YON is located at the Badhuisweg in Scheveningen, across the Nieuwe Parklaan from Madurodam. The address is Badhuisweg 191, Den Haag. For more details about the venue, go to their website http://www.yon-noy.nl.

We are very pleased that here is also plenty of free parking. If you are travelling by public transport, you can take tram #9 and get off at the Madurodam stop, cross the Nieuwe Parklaan at the roundabout and keep walking straight for another 5 minutes (into Plesmanweg, which turns into Badhuisweg). Alternatively, take bus #22 and get off at the Plesmanweg stop.

We are looking forward to seeing you all and to enjoying yet another inspiring networking evening!

Warm regards,

Anna Farrenkopf, Karin Bosscher & Erika Both
European Professional Women’s Network / Connecting Women

P.S.
Don’t miss out on our next networking evenings; please take note of the following EPWN/CW Hague Borrel dates and be sure to keep them free in your diary:

Tuesday 20 March 2012 19h00-22h00
Tuesday 17 April 2012 19h00-22h00
Tuesday 15 May 2012 19h00-22h00

This is a report on a recent brainstorming session that took place on 28 April 2010 at the Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam. The Board would like to thank Mary Jane Roy for her generous contribution to making this event report possible.

Entrepreneurs Community Corner, a key initiative

One of the key initiatives for the EuropeanPWN (EPWN) Federation in 2010 is the Entrepreneurs  Community Corner (ECC), which is intended to grow into a great support community for our entrepreneurial members across City Networks, to facilitate their sharing, connecting and leveraging one another’s knowledge, contacts and talents as they build their business.

There are good ideas coming from all of our City Networks on resources, links, experts and tools to add to the ECC.

To support this ECC initiative, the EuropeanPWN-Amsterdam Board invited our entrepreneurial spirits to a brainstorming session on the 28th of April, that was generously facilitated by Ursula Brinkmann (see the information below).

The objective of the session was to gather and collate all ideas, needs, interests, concerns our self-employed EPWN members, and to communicate the outcome of the session to the Federation Board.

‘What support do the entrepreneurial women of our network need?’ was the question that was posed by facilitator Ursula Brinkmann, following an efficient and eye-opening session of introductions. The “silent brainstorm” session proved to be a very effective manner to get ideas on the table in a surprisingly short period of time. Within 10 minutes, an extensive list of areas that need focus had been proposed and the participants began the process of categorising, sorting and voting. We thank Ursula Brinkmann for leading this productive session.

These are the results of the session

Within EPWN we have a wealth of knowledge and professional experience that we know can be of benefit for all of our entrepreneurs. The following image highlights the key areas of interest that our participating entrepreneurs put forward that evening (the percentage reflects the number of votes from our participants – a high percentage therefore means that the topic is high on the list of their needs).

The participants further discussed ways to make these results possible. One of the ideas was to organize a series of workshops for and by our entrepreneurial spirits, as a means to connect and offer relevant training.

Thank you too!

Our thanks also go out to Petra Rona, a guest of the evening (who has since become a member), who captured all ideas in a power point presentation (the above image is one of the slides). The Amsterdam Board looks forward to sharing this PPT with the other City Networks when we discuss ways to engage and facilitate exchange among entrepreneurs across the networks.

You can contribute too. How?

If you are passionate about what you do and wish to profile yourself and share your expertise with your fellow entrepreneurial members in Amsterdam and throughout Europe, please contact any of the Amsterdam Board Members. Include in your email what you would like to contribute, whether in terms of workshop topics, mentoring skills, business connections and otherwise.

Background information on Ursula Brinkmann

Ursula Brinkmann is co-founder and director of Intercultural Business Improvement Ltd, a consultancy and training firm specialized in intercultural management development.

Ursula has been delivering courses and presentations for a number of public and private organizations. One of her recent assignments consisted of workshops on Managing Dutch-German cultural differences for the integration teams involved in a major cross-border acquisition. In 2007/2008 she was responsible for an integration program for a European corporation; the program combined training, individual assessment, coaching as well as networking events for 180 managers.

Together with Oscar van Weerdenburg, Ursula developed the Intercultural Readiness Check (IRC), a questionnaire assessing four key intercultural competences. The IRC has been widely recognized in the academic and business communities, and its database by now is one of the largest sources of information on intercultural competences world-wide.