Sonoma, California | April 27, 2015: The Napa | Sonoma chapter of Women for WineSense (WWS) has put out a call for speakers for its new Lecture Series. The founding chapter of the national organization is adding another series of events to benefit its members beginning this summer, supplementing its major events series, its Tasting Series and meetups held throughout the year. The newly launched Lecture Series will provide members and guests with topic-specific presentations throughout the year to aid its wine industry and wine enthusiast members in furthering their wine education and career development goals.
Chapter President, Christine L. Mueller, explained, “For years we’ve heard presenters speak at our events and thought, ‘If only we could hear about that one topic for another hour or two!’” She continued, “At last we’re able to bring this dream to fruition with this new series of events, allowing our members and guests to showcase their expertise in a highly specific area of the wine world. It could be a career development seminar on leadership, or a tasting and olfactory class, learning to identify specific aromas.” She outlined that the Lecture Series’ topics could range the history and breadth of knowledge among its members and the wine community at large. “We already have one ‘master class’ on Bordeaux scheduled for late summer, given by an expert educator from the region. But most importantly, we’d like to share our members’ and guests’ expertise with the local wine community. I am always amazed at the knowledge and expertise among our members, and to be able to tap into that—and share it with the community—is a part of our mission.”
Professional Development Director, Susan Kornblatt Idell, explained the chapter’s strategy: “The Lecture Series allows members to delve deeply into a single wine-oriented topic. In the past, I’ve heard members say they wished we had the time to go into ‘XYZ’ topic much further, whether or not it’s been at a big event or at one of our 40-plus roundtable meetings throughout the year.” She continued, “Our move in this direction began two years ago when we added our Tasting Series, with each event focused upon a single topic. Our most recent event in that series, ‘Wines of the Loire Valley,’ overflowed with attendees to the point we turned away a few last minute guests. Now we can take it further and showcase member and industry expertise. If you have unique knowledge, from tasting to finance or career development (and much more), you should apply.”
Ms. Mueller mapped out the overall strategy: “Our objective is to make membership in the chapter much more valuable to our members by offering greater participation opportunities, which began with our highly successful Volunteer Corps earlier this year. These activities will strengthen relationships and contribute to achieving the chapter’s goals of providing career development tools and wine education.”
ABOUT THE LECTURE SERIES
Applicants will be chosen on merit from their submitted, detailed application and lecture outline, available online or by email. Review and acceptance of applications will be conducted by members of WWS’ new Volunteer Corps, which launched in February, as well as by the chapter’s Board of Directors. Lectures must be given north of the Golden Gate Bridge at venues to be determined in partnership with the chosen presenters as appropriate to the topic. The series is billed to launch this summer and will be built around the chapter’s and lecturers’ own event calendars.
Speaker presentation criteria include preferential opportunities given to chapter members. However, the series is open to anyone with expertise in the wine industry to ‘Share their passion, Engage the community, and Inspire others to succeed’ as it states on their webpage. A suggested range of topics for the series is provided on the website along with the option to apply online or via email. More information can be found on the chapter’s blog: http://wwsnapasonoma.com/launching-lecture-series/.
ABOUT THE CHAPTER
Women for WineSense is a not-for-profit organization 501(c)6 formed in 1990 to help its members advance their careers in the wine industry, providing educational events as well as aid wine enthusiasts in developing their wine knowledge. The Napa|Sonoma WWS chapter currently has more than 325 members of which 75% are professionals in the wine industry. For information about becoming a member, please email our Membership Director, Ellen Reich Luchtel at Membership@WWSNapaSonoma.com, or visit: http://wwsnapasonoma.com/join-our-membership/. The full 2015 calendar of events can be found at: http://wwsnapasonoma.com/events. The chapter will hold its next Tasting Series event, “Summertime Rosé,” which is open to the public, at Sonoma’s Best in Sonoma on June 11th (https://wws-summertime-rose.eventbrite.com).
