Berks Women in Motion promotes professional and personal growth through networking
Group supports relationship building, community outreach
Professional women in Berks County looking to make business, social and community connections can find those connections with Berks Women in Motion.
Started in 2017, Berks Women in Motion has grown from a monthly brown bag lunch meeting into a group that — while still meeting for brown bag networking lunches — also hosts roundtable discussions, mixers, relationship building activities and community outreach.
There is no membership fee to join Berks Women in Motion, although some events require a ticket to attend. According to Liz Hafer, chairwoman of the group and owner of EB Designs, a graphic design firm based in Muhlenberg Township, there is no limit on the number of participants from similar businesses, no required attendance and no required referrals.
She said while there are choices when it comes to choosing a networking group, Berks Women in Motion is different.
“There is an energy with this group that I have never seen before at other groups — an amazing energy,” she said.
Hafer said it’s important for women to have networking opportunities because they offer personal and professional growth. Berks Women in Motion gives members a chance to expand their connections, build relationships within the community and support one another with referrals.
“We’re building relationships
on a business level, but we’re also building a lot of friendships, as well,” Hafer said.
Tina Flood is the owner of Tina’s Therapeutic Touch Massage Services in Sinking Spring and volunteer coordinator for Berks Women in Motion. She joined the group about a year before she started her own business — a business she launched in November 2019, just months before COVID struck.
She said one of the important aspects of the group is the genuine relationships that have developed.
“We are all there to support each other,” she said.
Maleeva Lengel is cochairwoman of the group. A freelance make-up artist, Lengel moved to Berks in 2016 and started to network.
“I guess everything in business for me is about relationships,” she said. “It’s more important now than ever to get out and build relationships in the community and with each other.”
While she has been part of different kinds of networking groups in the past, Lengel said networking with women is different because “we are relationship driven and don’t need to separate our personal and business lives.”
“For me, there is more value to networking than just a referral,” she said. “We share books, workshop, build brands together and solidify our ‘why’ in business.”
Hafer has been part of Berks Women in Motion since it began in 2017. She met founder Connie D’Augustine at a speed networking event where D’Augustine said she was looking to start a new networking group. Hafer said she started talking with some of her contacts and by the next day there were 30 women interested in the group.
“That’s how it started. I designed the logo and helped with the Facebook page. I was involved in that from the start,” she said, adding that managing the page and event graphics is still part of what she does for the group.
Hafer started her own business, EB Designs, as a full-time venture in January 2016.
Membership in Berks Women in Motion varies between 35 to 40 consistently active members, Hafer said, but because of the way the group operates there are many more involved more casually.
“Women wear so many hats, we want to keep it
light and casual but it is a networking group,” she said. “All of the events and volunteering opportunities are come as you can and as you want. Members can attend as often as they like.”
Expanding the reach
In October 2019, Hafer took over leadership of the group and looked to expand the reach of it beyond the monthly lunch events. Now, the group operates with three main pillars in mind: Networking, roundtable discussions and community outreach.
“Our members have different backgrounds and experience levels,” Lengel said. “We can share our own education to help each other grow — a rising tide raises all ships. I haven’t seen a group that puts all three of those together as a mission.”
Hafer said the volunteering aspect was added because so many members were already involved in community outreach.
Flood serves as the volunteer coordinator for the group. She said one of the signature volunteer efforts is the quarterly Cook for a Cause with members preparing meals for residents at Opportunity House and Safe Berks.
At Opportunity House, she said, members are preparing and serving residents, while at Safe Berks the meals are being prepared off-site and delivered.
“As business owners we should be helping the community,” Flood said.
She said they have also
worked with Hannah’s Hope Ministries, Laney’s Legacy of Hope, The Children’s Home of Reading and Breast Cancer Support Services. Last year, the group participated in Help a Girl Out — a drive that collected feminine products and diapers for women in need. Other volunteer efforts include gift card donations and gift drives for organizations.
“We have a number of established activities, and I am always looking for good causes,” Flood said, adding that nonprofits come to speak at meetings about their organizations.
The Nov. 15 monthly meeting will feature a presentation from The Children’s Home of Reading, where Berks Women in Motion will be collecting gift cards for the organization’s holiday gift drive.
Roundtable discussions were also added to the group’s events, and Hafer said the group hosts two roundtables each year. The final one for this year is Oct. 18 and will feature a discussion of “Your Unique Brand” and how branding starts from the inside out.
Strength in adversity
COVID proved the importance of networking. Shifting to virtual meetings, Hafer said meetings of the group during the pandemic featured a wellness series, a speaker on nutrition, a virtual yoga class and a virtual holiday ugly sweater contest.
“They weren’t just an emotional and mental check
in. We also bounced ideas off of each other,” she said, adding they also talked about structuring business for the current times.
“We leaned-in on each other,” she said”
Flood, who had opened her business just months before the pandemic, said Berks Women in Motion helped with the morale of all the women in the group.
“The group stayed strong and picked up members during the pandemic,” she added.
Lengel, like Flood, saw her business shut down for several months at the start of the pandemic. She appreciated the community of support Berks Women in Motion offered.
“We were all going through the same big thing together,” she said. “We could talk about tools and share how we were getting through. It wasn’t just the emotional support but also business support. That was incredibly important.
“We also recognized that some people were taking the pause to figure out what they wanted to do. We workshopped that in zoom … we never stopped.”
Berks Women in Motion typically meets the third Tuesday of the month from September through May.
To find out more about Berks Women in Motion visit https://berkswomeninmotion.square.site/. The group’s Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/ BerksWomenInMotion includes information about upcoming events and links to registration.