Bay Area Energize

Thank you to MYPros for including us in the Regional YPN Luncheon at the Dow Championship! Good luck to all of the teams and nonprofits this week! 👍🏌️‍♀️

We had a great turnout for our first Coffee & a Cleanup with Hey, Bay City! Thank you to everybody who came out! 😄

📣 We are looking for 5 more hole sponsors for our Bay Area Energize Golf Outing! Please share with your networks and employers! This year’s golf outing will take place on August 9 at Maple Leaf Golf Course 🏌️‍♀️🏌️‍♂️

Thank you to all of those who have already contributed to make this one of our most continuous and most popular annual events! ⛳️🌟

Come out and join us! 😄

Hey, Bay City! and the Bay Area Energize Young Professional Network are teaming up for a monthly community cleanup event we're calling Coffee and a Cleanup! One Saturday a month at different locations throughout Bay County, join us for an hour of taking pride in our community...and a free coffee afterwards!

Our first cleanup will be THIS Saturday, June 22nd from 8AM to 9AM, and we'll meet in front of Central High School, 1624 Columbus Avenue. Please bring a pair of gloves (but we'll have a stack just in case!). Garbage bags will be provided.

After our 60 minutes of cleanup is done, head over to Populace Coffee for a drip coffee on us as a thank you!

Bring a friend, family member, the kids, anyone! We'll see you on the 25th!

It's that time of the year! Join us for the Annual Bay Area Energize Golf Outing! The BEST Non-Golfer Golf Outing! ⛳️Come enjoy 9-holes of fun with dinner and giveaways!

Friday, August 9, 2023
4:00 P.M. Check-In and 4:30 P.M. Shotgun Start
Maple Leaf Golf Course 📍
158 N. Mackinaw, Linwood

Cost to play is $40 per person and includes:
👉 9 holes w/ cart
👉 Giveaways
👉 Dinner

Golfers must be young professionals ages 21-40.
Cash bar is also available during dinner. 🍺

Register Here!
https://www.baycityarea.com/events/details/16th-annual-bay-area-energize-golf-outing-8044?calendarMonth=2024-08-01

Hey Energize members! We have teamed up with Sandlot Sports to offer some Energize swag! 😎 Now through June 16 you can purchase Energize apparel, just in time for all the summer activities we have planned! Purchase now through the link below, and show your support for Energize during our 15th year!

Bay Area Energize 2024 Online ordering for Bay Area Energize 2024 ends on Sun, Jun 16, 2024 (11:59 PM EDT)

Our 2nd YPN Lunch and Learn was such a great success! Thank you to MaddMarketing Solutions for discussing the importance of a strong social media presence, how to develop a content calendar, and maximize post engagement for your business! Thanks to everyone who came out to learn today! We can’t wait until the next L&L! 😊

There’s no better way to start your Friday, than to drink coffee & socialize with other young professionals! 😊 Thank you everyone who came out, to Populace Coffee for hosting us, & to MaddMarketing Solutions for sponsoring today’s event! Maddison is celebrating her 2nd year of opening up her business this month, as well as her birthday today! 🥳🎉 Everyone make sure to wish her a happy birthday, as well as a congratulations on her small business success! 😊

Memorial Cup is approaching! 🏒 We can't wait for our regional meetup on May 29th from 5-7! Register at the link below!

Another Day of Caring in the books! A few of our steering committee members helped clean up Wenonah Park in beautiful Downtown Bay City this morning 💙💚 Our community assets are so important and we have to give back in order to enjoy and have them! 🤗🌷

The ☔️ doesn’t bother us! 😉 Another successful Coffee Social in the books this morning at Populace Coffee! Thank you to the Bay Area Women's Center for sponsoring our event today 💛☕️

We’re back to 2 networking events next month, so mark your calendars for the next upcoming Coffee Social and YPN After 5! 🌟

Meet Grace - our Events Chair! ✨

Want to network with other YPs and meet new friends? Join Energize: https://www.baycityarea.com/energize-ypn

Our 2024-2025 Vice-Chair, Morgan Candela, is the best! 👏🌟

“I'm in the sales and marketing department as a customer service representative with Michigan Sugar Company and I joined Bay Area Energize in March of last year. It was something that my boss brought to my attention. He's involved with Rotary and in the Chamber, and he asked me, ‘Is this something you'd be interested in?’ I said, ‘Absolutely!’ The Lunch and Learn event for the Social Media Bootcamp was the first thing I attended and it's only been up from there. I love being involved and creating that sense of belonging within the community.

Our 15-year event is going to be huge because 15 years only comes around once! I'm looking forward to that and I also love the annual golf outing every August. That is August 9th this year and it's a fun, laid back, outdoors event.

Energize has impacted my life just by the connections that I’ve made. It’s nice seeing friendly faces around town or being invited to the fun events because making friends as an adult is hard. YPN is a great door to introduce you to like-minded people and to make friends. What you do with those connections are up to you, but it's the step in the right direction.”

– Morgan Candela, customer service representative with Michigan Sugar

Hey, we know her! Our group is so thankful for Annabelle Schweiger and her efforts on behalf of the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce! ✨

“At the Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, one of our biggest initiatives is attracting and retaining talent, so it’s important for people to create their own connections and relationships, both personal or professional. The vision of Bay Area Energize is to enhance the Great Lakes Bay Region by cultivating those relationships for young professionals. Important to the growth in Bay County is giving young people a reason to stay here and that starts with building connections.

Personally, through Energize YPN I've made a lot of professional relationships. I’ve also make actual friends! That’s nice because I'm not from the area, so when I moved here, I was starting from square one and it’s great to have your own community, and people that you can relate to and share with.

Much like the Chamber, for many of the Energize events, we offer member rates and future member rates. A lot of people will come to a coffee event to just feel things out, to see what it's like, and maybe meet some people before they decide they want to join. Starting this year, we are launching a membership campaign, and the idea is to pair up new Energize members with current Steering Committee members that have been with Energize for a while and know how it works. We think providing a little more structure and giving people opportunities to be partnered up with someone who has existing connections already helps them ease into it, so they can become more involved.

To apply for Energize, we have a link on the Chamber website and that takes you to our application. Basically, it asks what business you're with and some contact information. We also ask what your hobbies and interests are. We can look at that information when we're thinking about programming to see what our members are interested in. Energize membership is free for Chamber members and it's $30 a year for non-members. But either way, these events are pretty accessible to just about anyone. It's just a different rate for members versus non-members, but it's very easy to join.”

– Annabelle Schweiger, Marketing & Membership Manager, Bay Area Chamber of Commerce

Awesome job to our 2024-2025 Chair, Nicole Horn! 👏

“Energize YPN is an opportunity for young professionals to meet one another, connect and create a network that will help advance their careers. I’ve been involved since my junior year of college. I was interested in the community and I knew about things going on, and ultimately knew that there was a life after college I needed to work on. I wanted to meet like-minded people who were also just getting started in their careers and have a group of people that I could attend events with.

When you join Energize, for the first year of your membership, you get paired up with a Steering Committee member and they serve as your mentor for a year. They have two roles in that, one is to serve as a friend to take you to events in the community like Chamber events, community-wide volunteer events, and Energize events. They also let you know about upcoming events that you might want to attend based on your career and your networking interests to help you get exposed to different groups.

The second thing they help you with is working on your professional and leadership goals. In the beginning, you do a meet and greet where they learn about who you are: your interests, your goals, your professional skills, and more. At the end of your mentorship program time, they meet with you again to do an overview about your experience and also talk about and reflect on where you were then versus where you are now.

Aside from our coffee socials, we also have something called Energize After 5 events that operate just like our coffee socials as another opportunity for young professionals to hang out and spend some time networking. Those came about because we had people say that they would love to attend coffee socials, but they can't necessarily take that time off of work in the beginning of their work day. We're doing them quarterly to start to get a feel for them and how people like them.

We are going to start planning for our 15-year event next month for young professionals to join us at a more formal cocktail setting to hang out, network and celebrate where Energize has been for the last 15 years.

What's really cool about it is that we're hoping to bring back the original people who started Energize to come and reflect about their experience and where Energize has brought them in their careers. The event will give young professionals the opportunity to ask questions about what it's like to have a flourishing career, how to get to where those people are at, and what are some tips and tricks they used in their careers. We're just going to make it a big celebration for all of our young professionals.”

– Nicole Horn, Bay Area Energize

Our first Lunch & Learn, Tips & Tricks for First Time Home Buyers, was a success! Thank you to those who attended, and for our very own Energize and steering committee member, MacKenzie Steinbauer with REMAX Results for presenting!

Registration closes at noon today for our Lunch & Learn: Tips & Tricks for First Time Home Buyers! This is your sign to sign up!