Get to know your neighbors, and better yet, get to experience the range of taste sensations available right in your neighborhood at the very first Taste of Millis, that will take place on Saturday, March 4, from 6-9 p.m. at Encompass Fitness Center, 27 Milliston Road, in Millis. The event, which will benefit the Millis Educational Resources Initiative Team as well as the Milford Regional Chamber of Commerce, will feature food samples from food purveyors all around town, paired up with wine, beer and cider provided by 5th Ave Liquors. Admission for the 21+ even is just $20 per person.
“It’s a community building type of event,” Mike Eisenstadt, who has partnered with Sean Brady at Encompass Fitness. The event began with a networking group that Eisenstadt and Brady began with Andrew Mirken, who owns a Comcast franchise. The Metrowest Networking Group meets Wednesday mornings at 7:30 right in the hot yoga room at the gym.
“There are 2,000 members of the gym, and I said, ‘I’m sure there are people here doing small business,’ so we decided to start this group,” says Andrew Mirken, who founded the local network group with gym owners Mike Eisenstadt and Sean Brady. “Basically I put up some flyers and started to invite members who were in BNI groups. We have somewhere around 24 members now. There’s a wide variety of different people.”
Each week, every member of the networking group gets a two-minute “commercial” about their business, talking about what a good referral might mean to them. A featured speaker every week (the one who buys coffee that week), gets a 10-minute commercial.
Robin Spangenberg, of Northeast Signature Properties, jumped at the chance to network right in Millis. “I thought it would be a great way to meet local professionals and discuss our business with each other and see how we can help each other out, and learn what other people do in the town,” she says.
Jeff Hattem, a promotional products distributor with Prime Time Promotions, Inc., is a seasoned networker who learned about the Metrowest Networking Group through another networking group that meets in Holliston, BNI.
“I’m a big networker,” says Hattem. “I enjoy networking, because I work from home, and although there’s something to be said for solitude, I need to be part of communities and get out and be with people. That’s what networking does for me.”
Independent Herbalife distributor and personal wellness coach Deborah Carroll sees the group, and networking in general, as a god way to get her products in front of as many people as possible. “The group is very open to ideas in terms of allowing us to make recommendations on how things should be done. I’ve been involved in groups in the past that were extremely restrictive, but this allows us to give input and interesting ways to help each other build our business.”
“I have to say, it’s been great getting to know some of these people,” says Eisenstadt. “Even though we’ve only been doing it a couple months, there’s already been referrals.”
Brady agrees. “I think it’s great if small business owners can help each other, why wouldn’t you? It only makes sense to do networking.” Brady was a member of the Milford Chamber of Commerce when he opened his Milford location, so when talk arose of an evening event incorporating local restaurants and food purveyors, he turned to the Chamber.
“This is our first foray into a ‘Taste of’ in any of our 10 communities, and it was really a partnership, the brainchild of this networking group and Chamber staff,” says Kelley Brown, from the Milford Area Chamber of Commerce. It was just born out of a lot of great ideas and energized conversation. It should be a nice evening.”
Brown says the synergy of the new Millis networking group is “wonderful to see.”
Millis, she says, is “a growing community. Just going into the community and seeing the growth and the community spirit that’s there, and the fact that we have some of the proceeds going to MERIT and having their involvement and support, and being able to give back in that way as well. It’s really a coming together of community, education and business.”
Although a large number of local restaurateurs and shopkeepers expressed interest in the event, Local Town Pages was able to confirm the following Taste of Millis participants at its deadline time:
Budabing’s 50 Café
Dolce Dolce Bakery
Fresh Box Farms
Isabella’s
Millis House of Pizza
Hill’s Home Market
J&L Catering, and
Fifth Avenue Liquors
“All we’re asking them to do is donate the samples for the attendees,” says Brown, “and the other thing we ask them for is a gift certificate MERIT can use to raffle off as a fundraiser.”
In fact, Bob O’Brien, who conducts regular wine tasting at his Fifth Avenue Liquors locations, from 2-5 p.m. on Saturdays, will work to pair up wines and his other offerings with the tasty treats other businesses will provide. He will feature a table with Fit Vine wines, another with the Shannon family of wines, and he will offer a variety of beer with two beer tables, one with cider as well.
“I like doing things for my community,” says O’Brien, a resident of Medway, whose Millis location has been in business for 15 years. He says he’s happy to help other businesses, as well as MERIT, a good cause. Plus, he says, with a smile, “their parking lot is right next to mine.”
Issue Date:
March, 2017
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