Thank you to those who were able to attend our meeting at Allied Building Products last week.  We had a nice evening of networking, planning and hearing from a fantastic speaker, Greta Bajrami.  She was able to give us so many takeaways from her experience in the startup of her own roofing contractor business that apply in so many situations.  My favorite was how she trained her crew to live by the customer always being right, no matter what the situation.  It’s easy to be defensive and much harder to be humble. From the customer’s perspective, it’s much harder to stay mad when being treated good.  Her style of customer service is a credit to her success and growth and I admire her for that.

As we continue to determine the direction that, we, the council want to go, we have attached another short survey.  Please take the time to respond so we can gear future events in the direction that is best for everyone.  We appreciate you taking the time to respond, if you would be so kind to complete by July 31 we can move forward on a date for our December meeting.

Upcoming Events:

Sat. Sept 29 (7:45am – 3:30pm) Habitat for Humanity Build in Paterson

This event is limited to 10 people, 4 have signed up so far, so if you are interested, please sign up here to hold your spot:

Dec. Holiday Event (date to be determined from survey)

Learn the basics about roofs while enjoying a holiday meal

Hope everyone enjoys the summer!

Christine

Thank you all for coming out to GAF Headquarters for our first meeting of 2018.  I am so grateful for the volume of women that came to spend time learning about our organization!  We had a record number 46 women attend!

I am happy to let you know, we do have a complete Board of Directors for NJ, so please allow me to introduce everyone.

Christine Mockenhaupt – Chair

Lynn Picone – Vice Chair

Erica Sherman – Secretary

Liz Sieling – Treasurer

Julie Baker – Membership Chair

Jennifer Keegan – Education Chair

We will be getting together shortly to give you the dates for the remaining meetings for 2018 so that you can mark your calendars.  Thank you to all those that completed the surveys.  Your input and ideas will help guide us going forward.

I especially want to thank Lynn and Renee for welcoming us to GAF!  The presentations were terrific!  It’s always nice to always be learning, and hearing how innovative GAF is was fascinating!  The personal branding topic was perfect and the value exercise sparked some great conversation.

One of the ideas that came out of our speed networking round was to create a database of contacts.  I will work with the board to find a platform that we can log everyone that wants to be included.  We can use this as a local mentoring center for members.

Thank you all again for attending.  Our local website is:

If you haven’t already joined, what are you waiting for?  Click right here to join!

Until next time…..

Christine

Thank you all for coming out last night, it was great seeing everyone again and meeting some new faces!  Below is a recap for those of you who were unable to attend:

Guest Speakers Mary Jean and Barbara from Northern NJ Dress for Success came in and told us about the various services they provide women looking to get back into the workforce or sharpen their skills.  These services include Career center, Professional Women’s Group, counseling and coaching for interviews, Foundations of success workshop, and Technology Skills workshop, in addition to many others.

We decided to start a clothing drive which will culminate with a trip to the Dress for Success boutique, tentatively set for Sat. Oct 28 in the afternoon (SAVE THE DATE), where we will sort and donate the clothing collected as a team.

Rebecca Reilly from Sullivan Engineering was interested in guest speaking about her non-traditional role

Jyoti Belanger and Christine Mockenhaupt were interested in becoming mentors (6 month commitment)