Holistic Moms Network Open House!

I so wanted everything to go smoothly and everyone to feel welcome and have fun. I was sleepless for days with excitement over this, both before and last night - I wish I could switch my brain off on demand. =) It was such a success, with about twenty six holistic families represented by my count, two membership forms turned in that night and more promising to online! I was so excited I couldn't eat any of the yummy treats we had - I baked all day and others brought goodies too. We tried to stay low-eco impact with only napkins, asked people to bring their own beverage, and I brought my tablet pc for people to sign in on (I'm trying to stay as paperless as possible). As I looked around the room during the intros and saw so many faces of mommas I'd met in the past few months at one of the fifteen the informal meetups that I'd created leading up to that point I wanted to hug every one and share each one with the others that I'd met. I feel an unconditional love and acceptance for every one, and was so excited to see new faces of people I hadn't met yet. Isn't that neat? I'm so thrilled and looking forward to really getting to know everyone and forge deep friendships. I feel so strongly that this is possible with us going through such similar experiences with similar values and feelings, and it made me emotional at one point last night when I felt that realization of a dream coming true. The dream of creating a community of women who feel empathy for each other, share our knowledge freely, are passionate about making informed choices and supportive in our holistic motherhood journey.

I told my husband when we first met that I'd always had this desire to change the world for the better, but until this point I didn't know how I could do it. I realized last night that I was helping to do just that. Being able to meet and connect and help other women meet and connect with each other is just huge! Every day as time goes on I am really seeing the power of the word "Network" and why that is in our name. One mom was saying to me today on our weekly "Walk-N-Play" meetup that she really needed last night's meeting b/c she was able to talk to another mom about preschool frustrations. An acupuncturist momma told us she'll be working a few days at our meeting host's upcoming Holistic Healing center. I could hear by the level and tone of the conversation before and after the formal part of the meeting how excited people were and that the connections were being made last night. None of that would have happened if we didn't get this group going!

My co-Leaders Andrea and Michelle were wonderful and I was so proud to stand by their sides and lead the meeting! Michelle printed us name tags with the HMN logo on lanyards so we looked official. We had about a dozen raffle prizes and I brought in 15 of my treasured books to share, many leaving that night so the lending library was a hit! The vertical HMN banners with the nursing momma on it outside and inside were gorgeous and the room so cozy with toys for the little ones to play in the middle of our circle. We had a professional photographer mom who took photos and we had a volunteer greeter and helping with name tags for everyone. I couldn't have done all this without them helping to create this wonderful experience for us all. But I wanted to especially thank the HMN national leaders for making this organization happen and thank Katherine and Lauren b/c if I had not gone to their Tri-Vally OH last summer, I would not have been so inspired to do this, and it's becoming a life changing experience!

Spreading the word

I am so darn excited about our Holistic Moms Network! I have been scouring the net and searching for places to post our Open House. I've also been e-mailing a ton to get out the word to Holistic practitioners and businesses, and any groups who may have members who are interested (LLL, Babywearers, etc). I also posted a few times on Diaperswappers, Mothering Commune, babywearer, Tribe, MySpace, etc. Getting lots of phone calls, so I changed my VM to say "... of the SD chapter of H.M.N." like my manual says to.

I found this site to post to: Go City Kids, where we have a listing as well as an event posting. Yay!

I am so excited we may be getting a banner free from a sign maker in Pacific beach that Stacie's husband Rob is friends with! Yay! I found a beautiful pic of one I'd love to have above left. Wouldn't that be neat?

Here is the latest update on our chapter:

We have 70 members on our HMN interest list Meetup site, which has worked really well to get the word out about our chapter and the upcoming open house. Through it, I've met some wonderful moms and found some great places to meet. We've had 7 meetups so far. There are a few who may be great resources as speakers (look under the messages section, I think introductions has a few too).

One of our HMN members, Stacie Buechel (who donated the office and her time to help run our monthly meetings) is working on getting raffle prizes form local businesses, and sent out an e-mail to 500 people last night letting them know about our Open House! Michelle, Andrea & I selected her office when we got together this week Wednesday because of it's central location, her enthusiastic and generous help with the chapter and the fact that in summer when they open up their Holistic Center we'll move with them into a huge, fantastic meeting space right off the 5 (for free)!

I submitted the paperwork to get our chapter website online - they are working on it. Our chapter is called San Diego Central.

I contacted 35 local holistic businesses about our chapter and so far, have 3 interested in Sponsorship. I passed their info along to national since they handle it. We have 3 items donated for the raffle, and I have a few books I'm going to donate.