The Brunswick Beat – Episode 70 – Southport-Oak Island Young Professionals
Welcome to this episode of the Brunswick Beat with our very own, Anna Dennis, and her counterpart in the Southport-Oak Island Young Professionals, Abby Carson. These two have created an incredible community of working professionals that they lovingly refer to as ‘Yo Pro.’
TUNE IN as share how to get involved with this group and the deets about how often they meet up and where! We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Brunswick Beat!
We’ll catch you next time — you never know where you’ll find us!
Transcript:
0:03
3 secondsHi, I’m Anna Dennis from Hamilton Realy Group here with our next episode of the Brunswick Beat. I’m here with my partner in crime, Abby Carson for the Southport
0:11
11 secondsOak Island Young Professionals, or as we like to call it, the YoPros. Abby, can you share a little bit about yourself and how Yoro started? Yes. So, I’ve been
0:20
20 secondsin this area for about 2 and a half years, and it’s difficult to make friends here when you move here as a young professional. Don’t I know it.
0:28
28 secondsYes.
0:30
30 secondsAnd so once I got involved with the chamber through work, I joined the board this year and I wanted to contribute something. And so that’s kind of the
0:38
38 secondsidea for young professionals. The desire for the group came out of a need to make connections here, to make friends,
0:46
46 secondsbusiness connections, um, and to help me invest in this community, but also create an environment where other young
0:53
53 secondsprofessionals can invest and stay here longterm with their families, make friends, make community.
0:59
59 secondsAll right. So, if you um if someone was looking to join our YOPro, uh, how would you recommend they they get involved?
1:08
1 minute, 8 secondsYeah. So, everyone is invited under 40 to participate in our YOPro events. Um,
1:14
1 minute, 14 secondsanyone that is involved with the chamber, a member of the chamber, any businesses or individuals have automatic membership into our group. Um,
1:23
1 minute, 23 secondsotherwise, if you’re not a member of the chamber or an employee of a member of a chamber, you can come to three free events and then you can join as a YOPro
1:32
1 minute, 32 secondsmember, which is a discounted rate. And not only do you get involvement with the YOPros, but every other chamber event as well. So that is great for individuals
1:41
1 minute, 41 secondswho live here that work from home or a stay-at-home parent or I have some friends that are in
1:49
1 minute, 49 secondsWilmington, but they’re real estate agents that want to do business down here. They’re thinking about joining so they can get involved in this community to meet more people. Um, so you just
1:57
1 minute, 57 secondscome to the events really and then we’ll send you emails about other events and let you know what we’re doing, where
2:04
2 minutes, 4 secondswe’ll be, what time. So really involvement is just showing up enjoying our really casual networking events. And
2:11
2 minutes, 11 secondswe have little punch cards where you can come to our first three events and if you bring your punch card, you can put it into our raffle. Um, and we have a
2:19
2 minutes, 19 secondsbunch of our uh chambers donate some things and uh we’ve had some really Yeah. So, can you tell me a little bit about your meetings?
2:27
2 minutes, 27 secondsYes. So, our goal is to meet every month, once a month at least. Um, our big social networking event, sort of the
2:35
2 minutes, 35 secondsbig yo event, um, is around the last Thursday of the month, depending on our host, um, you know, what they have
2:43
2 minutes, 43 secondsavailable, but around the last Thursday of the month and from 5:30 to 7:00, so after typical workday, so everybody can
2:51
2 minutes, 51 secondscome and join. Um and these social networking events are really organized to be very casual. Yes. Very social. Um
2:59
2 minutes, 59 secondsso that differentiates us from the chambers business networking after hours. Um which is for all chamber members, but ours is just a little more
3:07
3 minutes, 7 secondscasual, little more social. It just helps people in a laid-back environment to meet each other. No expectations. My favorite part.
3:15
3 minutes, 15 secondsYes. It’s very nice. We like to gather at places that have food and beverages.
3:20
3 minutes, 20 secondsUm, all of our sponsors so far, which has been the Grape and Ale and then our first sponsor was Carolina Crab Brewing Company, both of them provided us with
3:29
3 minutes, 29 secondssnacks and just a fantastic environment bar.
3:32
3 minutes, 32 secondsYes, absolutely. Great drinks. And what we love about this is we show up and it’s not we network, but it’s mainly for
3:40
3 minutes, 40 secondssocial and we do end up talking about our jobs because we love what we do. Um,
3:44
3 minutes, 44 secondsbut there’s no sales pitch. Um it’s just people getting um around each other and after a long hard day of work
3:52
3 minutes, 52 secondsand yeah and we are also planning some more events um this year we will be
3:58
3 minutes, 58 secondsdoing quarterly volunteer opportunities activities group activities sorry um for the entire group
4:08
4 minutes, 8 secondsanyone who wants and is interested in joining in a group volunteer activity. We haven’t decided what we’re doing yet,
4:13
4 minutes, 13 secondsbut we’re going to do that once a quarter. Just another activity for the the group to get more involved in the community. And then we’re also going to
4:20
4 minutes, 20 secondsbe eventually in the future getting mentoring opportunities, big mentorship,
4:25
4 minutes, 25 secondsand then perhaps some professional development. Um, we’re just going to gauge what our members are interested in and what they want out of it. Um, so
4:33
4 minutes, 33 secondsthat we can get, you know, make sure people get the most out of their investment in the group. And then another reason why we started this and a little bit more on the mentorship is we
4:42
4 minutes, 42 secondsfirst want to spend this year getting more members to join. Um, a big thing with mine is when I talk about this with certain members, um, a lot of them,
4:51
4 minutes, 51 secondsyounger generations when they move here,
4:53
4 minutes, 53 secondsum, whether it’s you’re from Boston like me or up in the mountains, you move here, you move away, whether it’s from family, friends, a new career, a fresh
5:01
5 minutes, 1 secondstart, um, a lot of it is mental health is what I’m seeing reoccurring. And just meeting once a month with people in your
5:09
5 minutes, 9 secondsarea has had a huge effect. And it’s one of my proudest things for helping start this. um and to get more people involved uh just for your mental health. Yeah,
5:20
5 minutes, 20 secondsabsolutely. Having friends, having community, that was what I was searching for after living here um about a year and a half before I joined the chamber
5:27
5 minutes, 27 secondsboard and needing that community and a group of friends, which you can find here, but it’s difficult. So, we’re trying to pull people out of the
5:35
5 minutes, 35 secondswoodworks because everybody we meet that have come to these events, a lot of the work from homers and different people that maybe aren’t as familiar with the chamber, they’ve come to our events and
5:43
5 minutes, 43 secondsthey’re like, “Wo, we didn’t know there’s this many young professionals around.” And we’re like, I didn’t know we didn’t either. Is there anything else you like to add?
5:52
5 minutes, 52 secondsIf you are interested in joining the YOPro group, you can find us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, the chamber
5:58
5 minutes, 58 secondswebsite, get on our email list that you don’t miss any information on meetups and events. And we hope you come get
6:06
6 minutes, 6 secondsinvolved and come meet the amazing people in the Southport Oak Island Area Young Professionals Group. Thank you for joining us with today’s Brunswick Beat.
