From left to right: Tom Tancredo (Board Member), Anne Cucchi (Membership), Janet Lombardi (Vice President), Andrew Murano (President), Joannie Flynn (Membership), Simona Fava (Webmaster), Joy Lawrance (Secretary), Ann Bosso Johnson (Treasurer).

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Stay Tuned – CHristmas party Registration Opening Soon! 

Meeting Host and location:     Shear Productions Salon

Catered by: Rossi’s Catering – Billy Rossi

Food served: Roasted Italian chicken and potatoes, green beans, and salad. Delicious as always!

Networking started at 5:30, Dinner was served at 6 and meeting and presentation about Branding Your Business, by Janet Lombardi, presented at 7:00. All member introductions were given with a comment on their business branding.

Debi ran the meeting this evening and thanked everyone for coming.  She asked for updates on the following items:

• Membership Update– Anne: No new members to report this month.
• Treasurer Update – Ben/John: John is in Maui, poor thing, but Ben attended the  meeting. No formal update, but the transition to John as treasurer is 99% completed.
• Festival Italiano Update – Janet: Filed the first application.
• Meeting Venues and Speakers – Janet:
• Monthly meeting location options: Grandmas Noodless, Caruso Kithen
• Communications/website/Facebook Update - Janet: Members can now pay through the website for events and membership fees.  If you find anything confusing or if you’re having issues, please let Debi or Janet know so improvements or fixes can be made.
  
• Other news: Caruso Family Charities, has a fund raiser coming up on April 18th  at ComedyWorks from 7:30pm – 9:30pm.  The event is sponsored by Comfort Dental and features comedian: Jeff Caldwell.  Lucy’s restaurant (above the comedy club) will donate 20% to the charity if you have dinner there prior to the comedy event. For more information or to make a donation, please visit:        

                www.carusofamilycharities.org

Speaker was Janet Lombardi. A discussion was facilitatedon Branding. 

Here are a few of my takeaways:         

"Branding is all the ways you establish trust, image, dependability and loyalty with your clients and peers, It’s a promise of value!”     

A good brand achieves the following objectives: 

1. Clearly delivers your message·       
2. Confirms your credibility·                       
3. Emotionally connects your target audience with your product and/or service·Motivates the buyer to buy·       
4. Creates user loyalty
   

"Brand is an emotion that customers feel when they think of you.” 

It was a great topic and it inspired great conversation in the group. 

I hope this inspires you to join us next month!!

Ciao,

Jackie Sharrock

AccuCheck Screening

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Wednesday March 14th, 2018

With most of the board on vacation we had an intimate, but fun group this month!  Our host was MICI handcrafted Italian restaurant. We were served a variety of salads, antipasti, crostini and pizzas.  Everything was very tasty.  This restaurant is a huge hit with parents with young kids, so the place was very lively from 5:30pm until about 7pm. 

Anne Cucchi did a fabulous job as acting board director in very challenging sound conditions.  Jerry Caruso’s charity, Caruso Family Charities, has a fund raiser coming up on April 18th at ComedyWorks from 7:30pm – 9:30pm.  The event is sponsored by Comfort Dental and features comedian: Jeff Caldwell.  Lucy’s restaurant (above the comedy club) will donate 20% to the charity if you have dinner there prior to the comedy event.  For more information or to make a donation, please visit: www.carusofamilycharities.org. You’ll laugh and cry a lot at the event, but it’s an incredibly great cause!

Anne introduced us to a wonderful speaker: Lou Riverso, Business advisor for Jefferson County Business Resource Center.  This center offers several wonderful programs for small businesses located in JeffCo.  They offer many different programs at little to no cost to the businesses.  To learn more, please visit:www.jeffcobrc.org. 

All in all, it was a good meeting with great company, food and wine.  I hope to see you at our next meeting Wednesday, April 11th..

Jackie Sharrock
AccuCheck Screening
“Helping You Hire Right the First Time.”
Email: jackie@accucheckscreening.com
Cell:303-557-8324.

Our wonderful evening started by being greeted by our host Paul of Bonacquisti Wine Company with delicious wines.  We then were spoiled with fabulous food provided by our own, Billy Rossi from Rossi’s catering, who still uses his Mom’s original meatball recipe! They were “delizioso!”

Debi started the meeting portion of our evening by giving Vince and Dana their awards for 2017. She also reminded everyone that dues have gone from $60 to $90 for individuals and businesses can join for $150.  The Board is seeking a treasurer and a Facebook person for 2018.  Debi thanked Belva for taking the minutes for the board meeting.

Janet and Nicole spent the remainder of the meeting revealing the new Website, denveriaba.org.  Nico Associates and these 2 amazing ladies have spent countless hours working on improving the capabilities and user-friendliness of the existing site.  Here are a few of the great improvements: 

• You can now register and pay for events online and a lot of work is being done to greatly improve the “member only” portion. 

• You can now easily send out email blasts, special offers, etc.  It will track all the events you’ve signed up for and will send automatic reminders. Just to name a few things. 

• You will have a private and public profile to protect you from getting “spammed.”  The public profile will list your company name, your name, phone number and website.  Your email address is only shared with other members.  You’ll receive an email in the near future to create your own login and from there you can create your company profile, add your logo, flyers etc.

• Easily sign up new members, change addresses, pay your membership renewals etc.

• This is a work in progress and for any questions/suggestions, please contact us.

All in all, it was a very informative meeting with great company, food and wine.  I hope this motivates you to not miss our next meeting on Wednesday March 14th. 

Jackie Sharrock

AccuCheck Screening

“Helping You Hire Right the First Time.”

Cell: 303-557-8324

The meeting last night (1-10-18) was hosted by Brodo’s Italian Scratch Kitchen located in BelMar, Lakewood, Colorado.  Brodo’s catered our meeting with, as usual, EXCELLENT food.  We had great Mozzarella Cheese Rounds, Muscles in Wine Sauce, Stuffed Italian Sausage Rolls and Toast Points with Tamponade, and wonderful wine.

President Debi Portararo held the meeting going over important membership business.

Debi thanked everyone for coming, and introduced the new Board Members joining in 2018:  Terry Cervi, John Gravina and Andrew Murano.  The full board for 2018 will include the following:  Debi Portararo, Anne Cucchi, Belva Wildman, Janet Lombardi, Terry Cervi, John Gravina, and Andrew Murano.

Debi reported Janet Lombardi is mending after surgery.  Send her a card or a text to get well soon…….

The January Meeting historically is the organizations Business Meeting.  Debi covered the following items:

1. Yearly Dues are increased from $60.00 per year to $90.00 per year for individuals
2. Yearly Dues are offered for a business at $150.00 per year, which allows four individuals to attend the monthly meetings as members
3. Individual members will pay $10.00 to attend the monthly meeting to cover the cost of food provided
4. Guests will pay $15.00 per person to attend the monthly meeting to cover the cost of food provided
5. Any member or guest that attends the monthly business meeting without having sent in a RSVP will be charged an additional $5.00 (Member cost goes to $15.00 and Guest cost goes to $20.00)
6. If you RSVP and do not attend the membership meeting you will be expected to pay for the meeting as though you attended.  (As a side note, when we give the number of people attending to the caterer or owner of the establishment that is providing the food we have to pay for the amount we say are attending.  Last night we had RSVP’s for 27 and 25 showed up.  We still had to pay for 27 even if there were only 25 there. )
7. The Website is being reconstructed to be “user friendly”; if you go on the website now it will not be user friendly.   When the new site is completed the old site will be directed to send everything to the new site, which should happen within the next 30 days.
8. Anne Cucchi gave a report on new members joining the organization.
9. The Outgoing Treasurer, Ben Parham, had a conflict and was unable to attend the meeting to give a financial report; the organization is in a good position and Ben will be turning the books over to the new Treasurer within a couple of weeks.
10. Tish was not in attendance so we were not able to talk with her to find out when she will be taking over the email blasts.
11. The Membership is interested in participating in Festival Italiano in 2018.
12. The Membership is interested in participating in Italian Heritage Month and have instructed the Board to present ideas for projects for that month.
13. The Membership is interested in putting together a Bocci Ball Tournament with the IOA.
14. The Board is working on the 2018 Budget.

Debi thanked everyone for attending and “with the help and enthusiasm of our 2018 Board and Membership this will be a Spectacular Year”.

There being no further business the meeting adjourned and members spent the next hour visiting and getting to know one another and sipping some VERY GOOD VINO……….now, aren’t you sorry you didn’t attend?  See you next time.

February’s meeting promises to be a very good and interesting meeting.