A new event has brought women from all sectors and backgrounds together to develop their networking skills.
Vibrant lighting, free prosecco and canapés welcomed women at the independent, female business Ménagerie in Salford this week.
The evening was organised by the non-profit organisation SIRENS – the Sisterhood for Interdisciplinary Research, Exploration, Networking and Synthesis.
Founded by friends Ozgun Caren Avincsal and Caty Flynn, this was the second free, bi-monthly SIRENS social, after their first event in November 2023.
Flynn said: “The whole endeavour is about bringing women together to create incredible professional relationships.
“You can’t beat a system without a system. SIRENS is a system driven by women coming together to create strength and growth through collaboration, support, and knowledge exchange. Our central goals are to connect, empower, and inspire women.
“As a group we lean towards the unconventional and we are not interested in replicating the standard networking event. We find that traditional formats are not conducive to meaningful connection and can be completely inaccessible to many individuals due to a variety of reasons.
“We want to offer interesting and inspiring events in comfortable, casual environments, where women can really get to know one another and learn from each other. We are also determined to regularly engage our community in our social offerings.”
The award-winning guest speaker, Carol Ann Whitehead, hosted a discussion on overcoming introversion and utilising ice breakers to deal with imposter syndrome.
She shared the story of a time where she was asked to attend a conference, but her anxiety caused her to be unwell on the flight and she nearly went home. When she got there she found out she had won an award.
Whitehead said: “Imagine if I didn’t go. That was the worst case of imposter syndrome I ever had.
“Crowns are not made of rhinestone and diamonds, your crowns are made of discipline, determination and a hard-to-find alloy called courage.”
Women were able to develop their confidence with a speed networking exercise, encouraging them to share information about their current role, their dream role, a goal for 2024 and their LinkedIn to connect after the event.
Architecture student Veronica Melek said: “One of my co-ordinators at university told me about this event. I’m an introverted person so I had my doubts about coming. I have an INTP (introverted, intuitive, thinking, perceiving) personality, so it can be hard to socialise. This type of thing brings me out of my comfort zone.”
The final activity focused on collaboration and teamwork, as the women were asked to work in groups to design their dream event and present their ideas.
A mindfulness evening was voted the best idea and the SIRENS team hope to organise it later this year.
Avincsal said: “Caty and I became friends in May, we met at another networking event at the University of Salford and she’s introduced me to different people. She’s a creative writer and I’m a scientist, so she thought it would be great to set up an organisation bringing women together, as spending time together would be great for all of us.
“You can be anything, but the network you have and the people you know is very important in business. Without knowing people in that area, you’re alone trying to do something, but if you have somebody giving you a hand, you can do better things and have someone to support and help you go further.
“It’s nice to be able to meet different people here and do this type of thing for people living in Manchester.”
The next SIRENS event will be on Thursday 28th March and more information can be found closer to the time on their social media pages.
