Town Hall and Survey Update

The Town Hall concept is coming along nicely. So far, I've received emails from a few of you to secure your spots. Please pass the word along to any 50 plussers who would benefit from this type of event. Just to give you an idea of how the afternoon session is going to work, I thought it would be a good idea to outline for you the objective and what the general agenda is.

For those of you who haven't read past posts announcing the Gen Plus Town Hall, in a nutshell, I'm taking social activism to a whole new level. I've found a venue that is going to partner with me and has offered to host an afternoon forum for Gen Plussers - in Encino (a suburb of Los Angeles.) It will take place on Tuesday, January 22, 2008 from 2 - 4:30 pm...at no charge. There will be food and drink available (and encouraged) for purchase -- most meals come in at under $10.

There is limited space, so this will work on a first-reserved, first-served basis. The objective of the afternoon is to bring the challenges of job search for 50 plussers out into the open and for you to leave with some tangible action items that you can incorporate into your job search or your start up (or existing) business. There will be a few industry experts (HR, Employer Relations, Marketing) who are planning on joining us. If you need some help with your resume or cover letter, bring a few copies with you and we'll try to make the time to give you some free advice.

We'll be starting off with a short panel discussion. Then you'll be breaking up in groups with specific assignments. Once your assignments are complete, you'll be sharing your findings with all the groups. Our experts will be joining the different groups and available to facilitate and answer questions along the way! Whatever action items or findings come out of this forum will be collated and then sent to each attendee so that you have a written document of our findings.

There will be some items for sale -- all geared to the 50 plus market and available for purchase if you need them, or available online at a later date.

This is a small segment of a one-day program that I would typically charge an arm and a leg for ;), but I truly believe in our ability to mobilize one community at a time and really positively impact how employers are looking at the 50 plus demographic.

I've had requests for Town Halls in Boston, DC, Chicago and Raleigh and I'm holding onto all names for future events. If you are interested, please send me an email at wspiegel@genplususa.com. I'll be relentlessly promoting this free forum because you need to be there, so you might as well email me now and get it off your plate. (I'm a little cheeky today, I know...but this program will really be helpful and I know there are tons of California subscribers just dying to spend an afternoon in Encino, some East Coasters and mid-Westerners who will need an excuse to get away from the cold, and some golfers who will want to stay on and take advantage of the venue the next day...)

On another note, thank you to all of you who are responding to the survey. This will be very helpful for Choose2Lead, a nonprofit, doing research on the 50 plus work demographic. The survey will only be open for a couple of weeks, so please make your voice count. (Just up at the top of the page.)

Finally, I'm still hearing from some of you who don't know how to comment on the blog. If you are a Feedblitz or Feedburner subscriber, you can't comment by replying to the email. You have to click on the title, which will link you to the blog. Once there (here) scroll down to the bottom of the post and you'll see a link called "Comments". Just click on the link, enter your comments in the pop up window, and sign in anonymously or otherwise. That's it.

I always love to hear from you.

Wendy