La reunión

The purpose of organizing the reunion was to bring back alumni interest to Accion Emprendedora. AE has been successful at getting the public’s attention to sign up for classes, but it has been difficult for them to retain members after they graduate. After weeks of calling potential speakers, AE alumni, and a lot of organizing, la reunion finally came to life on Thursday, July 8th. Early on that day, we were busy getting CEPA ready for the event and getting enough food as possible.

In the end, we received about 70 confirmations that people were going to come, but we knew that if you get that number only about half would actually show up. We decided that we would be content if 30 people showed up since the room was just big enough to hold 40. People began showing up around 6 p.m. and we had several tables to keep them entertained until the event began at 6:30. As soon as the clock struck 6:30, I was surprised to see that room was already packed with people and that there were more people flocking in. Our idea of calling them and emailing them really worked. It gave them the feeling that they were wanted and since we were foreign, they were interested in seeing what we had to offer. It’s actually a lot of fun to play the foreign card (not that you need to say much to show it anyway) because people instantly become more curious about you and pay you a lot of attention.

All in all, we had about 50 people show up to listen to three speakers. They varied from a recent alum, whose business was fairing well, to a graduate of Syracuse University who has been a director and manager at multiple multinationals in Chile and South America. Needless to say, the AE alumni appeared interested and asked many questions when it came to Q & A. Even our director Alvaro Bronstein and the old director of CEPA, Daniel Rojas, were surprised over the turnout and applauded us on a great alumni reunion.