Engage Alamance II
May 2, 2017
Engage Alamance is an exciting quarterly series built upon the primary belief that participation is greater than observation. We work to re-engage Alamance County and its access to entrepreneurship through community development and practical next steps. More than just having a conversation, we want attendees to leave with tangible ways to connect, innovate, and collaborate within our community.
Over 120 people came to Southland Electrical Supply in Burlington, North Carolina for our second installment in the Engage Alamance series. Our first installment focused on why we need to re-engage Alamance County -- this event, we were focused on the how.
Attendees heard from Katie Chung, Manager at Southland Electrical Supply and Board Member for Alamance County's Awesome Fund, Jensen Roll, CoOperative's Executive Director, and Claire Haslam, an Alamance County Community Entrepreneur. Paul Koonts, Chair of the Board of Directors at Alamance Chamber, was our keynote speaker. Lastly, Burlington Mayor and Awesome Fund President, Ian Baltutis, presented the first recipient of the Awesome Fund.
Listen to each speaker below, flip through photos, and check out our recap from our first installment.
““That’s what this is about, it’s finding somebody you can engage with. Learn something new, get involved in our community, and help move our community forward.””
““It’s one thing to go out and rally the troops and really get people excited. It’s another thing to really move the ball forward and do something about it. For so long we can just talk about issues, and it’s now time that we are able to go out and make some change.””
““I have this great belief in collaboration and collaborative community efforts and how we can be talking to each other whether it’s person to person, business to business, city to city — communities need to be talking to each other. We need to be helping each other and we can’t survive if we are acting as independent entities. So I encourage you all to keep these conversations going, have more of these types of conversations, collaborate on something new, put yourself in a supporting role for someone or some initiative that you see valuable in your community.””
““We have a lot of entrepreneurs in Alamance County, sometimes they’re a little hard to find. Some of them are on gravel roads working in their warehouse behind their house, some of them are in big companies. They’re out there. But, while our community has entrepreneurs, we don’t really have a community of entrepreneurs. We don’t have a place for them to be. When you come down to our human experience, regardless of how we view ourselves, we need that shared experience. We need to have the ability to talk with other entrepreneurs — share our stories, share our risks, and get advice and mentorship.””
““As entrepreneurs and leaders, we like to do things. I don’t think a lot of have patience. If you’re in small business, you’re wasting time, you’re wasting money, so we get out there and we make things happen.””