Since college days, we have been reminded that networking is really important regardless for business or personal relationship.
As we all know, the more mature we are, the smaller our circle of friends, especially for singles. We are too lazy to go out of our comfort zone. We often go hang out with the same friends and barely meet new people.
Above cliché created the idea of Midwest Gathering event for singles. Why just for singles? Because we got many inquiries from IU alumni members to make an event just for singles. Our chapter head Sulaeman Liong came up with the question: Why don’t we make a gathering to meet new people with the same status, experience, and knowledge of studying abroad. So, we decided that one common thing is: YES! We lived in Midwest area.
Midwest Gathering for Singles was initiated by Indiana University Indonesia alumni, we then invited Purdue, Wisconsin, Ohio State, and Michigan. Each school representatives were very interested to make this event successful. Led by Feilica (IUB Class of 2013) and Fariz (IUPUI Class of 2013), we set up a date on May 20th, 2017 at Demang Restaurant.
The purpose of this Midwest Gathering is to have fun while getting to know new people. It’s not a matchmaking event. Who knows you bump into someone who has the same hobby and interest with you, and then you can be the best buddy? Or maybe you can meet your potential business partner/client?
We limit the participants to 50 people. They have to be single by the ID and be undergraduate class of 2006 and above. So the range of age is between 22 – 32 years old.
It’s a small gathering because we want to make sure that everyone has a chance to meet each other and to get out of their own circle.
The event started with registration. We got sponsor for photobooth from one of Wisconsin alumni. After the registration, the event started with Bingo game.
In this game, we gave out the list of questions that one has to ask others. Connect two straight line throughout the boxes and call out BINGO! Three winners get IDR 50,000 shopping vouchers by MAP. All of the participants were very engaged in the game. They were all moving around trying to answer all the questions.
After the Bingo game, came the main event: round table networking. In this part, we partnered one girl and one guy to sit face to face. We assigned everyone to one starting number. This is where you got to know your partner in detail. We gave them four minutes in each session. After four minutes, the guys had to move to the next number, and so on.
We see many people exchanged phone numbers, found the same interests, or even found out that they have mutual friends.
Again, back to the initial idea: wider your reach and circle of friends! You never know whom you will bump into.
We also have Instagram challenge. The rule is to take picture with three friends from different school. At the end of the event, we announced the winner; one winner with the most “like” in their account, and one winner selected by the committee.
We would like to thank all sponsors, team of committee, and all the university alumni chapters who were very supportive and dedicated to make this event very fun, colorful, and successful!
We are definitely looking forward to having a wider Midwest alumni to join future events.