West Kendall schedules second annual expo

May 21, 2007

At a West Kendall Business Association “Bring your Child to Work” luncheon, Larry Barditch of Palm Water with, from left, nephew Enrique Collera, age 12, and sons Joshua Barditch, age 10, and Jonathan Barditch, age 7.

Mark this date on your calendar: Thursday, October 4, 5-8 p.m., Signature Gardens, 12725 SW 122 Ave.

That’s the date for the second annual West Kendall Business Association Expo. The first one was possibly the best networking event of last year, with a huge crowd taking advantage of the opportunity to enjoy free food and beverage and view the offerings of the 52 businesses which took booths. Big companies like Comcast, The Miami Herald and Eastern Financial became sponsors.

Since the 52 booths last year sold out immediately, the number will double this year, says WKBA president Jorge Pena of Aflac.

Last year’s expo was, for many, their first exposure to the West Kendall Business Association, which was only 10 months old at the time and already had 100 members.

Now, in its second year, WKBA has 165 members and Pena says the goal is 300, which – as you know – is amazing for a community business organization. The group regularly draws over 100 to its monthly lunch meetings, and last month reached 125.

The reason for the organization’s success is twofold. First, West Kendall is an area of tremendous growth which has hungered for a networking group of its own. Second, the WKBA generates enormous energy. Signature Gardens is a great place for networking meetings. Plenty of free parking, it can easily expand to comfortably accommodate any size crowd, and it has a huge lobby area for pre- and post-meeting networking chats. Meetings are fun, the food is good and reasonably priced, and all this attracts many networkers from outside the West Kendall area.

There is also a growing tradition of WKBA co-sponsoring after-hours events with local businesses. They did one recently with Greenwich Commercial Village, which held a grand opening of a new building, and a week later did another with Eastern Financial Credit Union. Both drew crowds of about 125. Wow!

If you are looking for good networking, try the West Kendall Business Association (go to the Organizations page to link to its website). It’s one of the few groups where I try never to miss a meeting.