Place to meet other young professionals

A new organisation aimed at bringing together Taranaki's young professionals is going great guns, as Rob Maetzig reports.

ROBERT CHARLES

Louise O'Dea: Returned home and started up Taranaki Young Professionals.

JONATHAN CAMERON

Caylea Godfrey: Has found TYP to be a great way to meet fellow professionals.

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When Caylea Godfrey arrived in Taranaki two years ago, she didn't know anyone.

The young engineer had been raised in Cambridge, went to university in Auckland, and moved to New Plymouth to work for a major engineering and construction firm.

But what to do? The 24-year-old didn't just want to hang out with other engineers; instead, she wanted to meet other young professionals in both business and social environments.

Meanwhile, former Hawera girl Louise O'Dea returned to Taranaki after getting her accounting degree and travelling, and also wanted to meet other young professionals.

Then she had an idea. A childhood friend, Anna Beccard, was president of an organisation called Wellington Young Professionals, a networking organisation for young career- minded people in the capital.

So Louise decided that Taranaki should have a similar organisation.

She began to scout around for other young people interested in helping form Taranaki Young Professionals and discovered there was a considerable amount of interest - and things took off from there.

TYP held a launch party in late November. Its membership has just passed 200 and is continuing to grow.

"When we got a group of friends together last year to get this thing going, we figured we needed at least 15 members to make it work," says Louise. "Now we're aiming for the membership to move past 300."

Why the success? Caylea Godfrey reckons the answer is obvious: TYP is a great means for young people busy in the early years of their career to network with other professionals.

"It's been great. I'm meeting heaps of other people - not only fellow engineers, but lawyers and accountants and people in all sorts of professions. The gender balance is about 50-50 too. Now we're hoping that farmers and tradespeople will get involved as well."

Caylea, who is looking after the marketing side of the things for TYP, says research shows that there are 4500 potential members in Taranaki.

"So the challenge now is to attract them to join in. We're sure they would find membership very valuable, both professionally and socially."

TYP has created its own website (typ.co.nz) which says the aim of the organisation is to help members network and socialise with young professionals across Taranaki, and to arrange educational events involving business leaders to help the development of members' careers.

The organisation also aims to promote Taranaki as a place for young professionals to live, work and play.

"We plan to hold a range of business and social events designed to provide networking opportunities, foster learning and development from national and regional business and community leaders, advance personal and professional development, encourage entrepreneurship - and ensure we have a good time," states the website.

So far it's obvious that that is happening. This year was kicked off with a summer barbecue at a local bowling club where members enjoyed bowls, gourmet burgers and a few drinks.

Things got more serious a few days ago with the first of an "Inspire" series of seminars in which the chairman of Taranaki's CEO Forum, Riverlands boss Trevor Johnston, spoke on the skills and values of leadership.

Next week TYP is holding another seminar at which two solicitors and a mortgage broker will provide advice on how to buy a first home.

To date TYP has received positive feedback from members and sponsors about the events and the organisation itself, says Caylea.

"It's been great. Personally I've found it a wonderful way of meeting people and helping me professionally."

- © Fairfax NZ News