Restrictions also put a halt during the past year to all our Networking events which are so popular with both high school and college students. The sessions give students an amazing opportunity to meet in an informal atmosphere with professionals from different areas of the industry, with some strong connections being formed.
We were, however, able to host a successful virtual workshop for over 30 BFIS alumni in March on the topic of ‘Zoom to Success – How to Network in a Virtual World’. The event was hosted by Lorene Phillips, Leadership and Career Coach with Clarendon Wallace, who was joined by Linked-In expert Bill McCormick who spoke about utilizing the site to network effectively, with Victoria Cunningham moderating the session – many thanks to them!
BFIS is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year and though we have been unable to host any events thus far we remain hopeful that towards the end of the year we will be able to organize a Super Event, spearheaded by the Mentor Committee, for all our Scholars, Trustees, Committee members and Company Representatives who usually attend. Watch this space!
The Mentoring programme, which is underwritten by AON, has grown in leaps and bounds in recent years, with many non-BFIS students as well as our scholars benefitting. Because of this interest we need more mentors to ensure that we are able to assist all the students. To this end, we planned to hold a photo-shoot with a number of Mentors and Mentees in an effort to produce a leaflet which would explain all about mentoring and hopefully build up our numbers. Unfortunately, the session had to be postponed because of renewed restrictions but later in the year we will go ahead with it once we are allowed to meet in small groups out-of-doors.
If you are interested in mentoring, please do let us know! We will be more than happy to explain what is involved and invite you to the next event.