Christmas Charisma

Your local Christmas curmudgeon got her veneer cracked the other day. Donna Chaney invited me to a Women's City Club luncheon, and I don't like to miss a chance to spend time with a good friend like Donna. Nor do I like to miss a chance to visit the historic Blinn House, the Club's home at the edge of the Fuller Theological Seminary campus.

So I expect and receive a nice meal, a cup of coffee and the company of smart, entrepreneurial women. We're munching away and having a proper chat when in come these adorable kids in their charming costumes and I think, "Ah, well, there goes the conversation."

Pitch pipe gives a quiet note and BAM! These junior musical geniuses sing out Christmas carols old and new in such glorious, four-part harmonies that I actually put down my fork and shut up to listen.

I agreed with the woman next to me that they had to be college kids because they were too good to be any younger. Wrong. They're the Crescenta Valley High School Charismatics Chamber Choir, and they are super.

Of course even talented high school kids are not going to sing with that kind of precision without a lot (a lot!) of rehearsal. Wrangling that is their conductor, Mr. Shannon W. Mack. If you want to talk to him about having these charismatic cherubs serenade your Christmas soiree, contact him at smack@gusd.net.

Re:Launch

Once upon a time you learned a profession, you got a job, you worked hard at that career and you retired with a pension at the age of 65.

THE END.

And I do mean, "the end." It's the end of that kind of career. The internet and the recession have radically changed the workplace and we have to change with it. We will have several careers in our lives. Many people who've been laid off or downsized (same, insidious thing) have turned to entrepreneurship or small business ownership. Many of us come from a background of working for companies that had departments for accounting, planning, marketing, IT, acquisitions. Now we run all the departments. At least I do.

Did our 20th century educations prepare us for the 21st century work force?

You may remember last year I participated in a Business Builders' Boot Camp. I loved it and promised to let you know if there was another. Now the same people who ran Boot Camp are holding a two-day strategic planning retreat March 4th and 5th at the Historic Blinn House, home of the Women's City Club of Pasadena (pictured above). Men are most welcome, by the way.

The retreat is called Re:Launch, as in relaunch your business. Donna Chaney, of Chaney Financial Services (my one and only advertiser!) and Lilli Cloud, marketing and personal branding expert at bluefeet, are the warmest, most engaging business aces you will ever have the pleasure of learning from. And for their Friday lunch speaker they've got Karen E. Klein, the Smart Answers Columnist from Bloomberg  BusinessWeek, Q&A Columnist of the LA Times Business section and all-around business brainiac.

You can waste time and money figuring this stuff out as you go, or you can learn it all at Re:Launch. For more information, click the links. Or contact Lilli Cloud at 323-466-3518 or lcloud (at) yourbluefeet.com

I think I'm in the wrong career. I should be writing ad copy.

Tomorrow: I'm excited to host Pasadena Daily Photo's first ever guest post! Stop by and meet Altadena author Des Zamorano.