Third Friday Medford, 4/15/22
Moving to a new city during a pandemic has a bazillion challenges: moving, pandemic, scam artist movers who have since been arrested, finding a hairstylist/aesthetician/mechanic/favorite gas station/favorite grocery store/where to buy random things/favorite eateries/favorite place to get a cocktail/having no friends.
One of the biggest challenges that I’m facing is rebuilding my business in a new place. I vastly underestimated my network in the Bay Area, specifically the North Bay (Napa, Sonoma). I didn’t know a soul when I took my corporate wine job in Napa in 2007, but getting a job has a built-in social circle. There are other humans to eat lunch with and go to happy hour with. There are events to attend, business travels, meetings. I chose to start the business, giving up all aspects of collaboration in a professional setting, which is still a challenge for me today. I miss brainstorming meetings and offsites. I miss COLA database searches on wine brand names that were tossed around in a highly creative environment. All of that for all of those years built a foundation, a network of amazing people in wine and outside of wine, people I worked with when I started my business and that snowballed.
Here I sit in my new studio in downtown Medford, our new home. 2021 was tough - we were super new here, and I had no idea how to meet anyone. How the heck do you make friends or build a network in your 40s? Well, it’s not easy. I decided to go old school in some ways - I joined the Chamber, I went to a Rotary meeting, I attended every single professional event I saw, like Women’s Leadership Conference and Women Entrepreneurs of Southern Oregon, and scoped out the local Rising Tide Society chapter. I also joined the Downtown Medford Association and more than being a member, I joined a committee! I have never done anything like this before! I’m now a proud member of the Promotions Committee.
This TL;DR story was to get you to this part: the Promotions Committee has relaunched Third Friday Medford, a street fair event focused on art, music and food in downtown Medford. As someone who has no context, no idea what the event was like before, I think I bring a unique perspective. I watched as Napa went through the exact same things Medford is going through now, and look at how Napa has changed and grown since 2007. Events downtown are now the standard, not the exception. I remember vividly when they were the exception. Here in Medford, I wanted to be a part of that regrowth, that revitalization of downtown. We live near downtown, I work downtown and I really want to see it come out of its pandemic hibernation and be the buzzing historic downtown it is meant to be.
Enjoy some shots from our Third Friday Medford event from this past Friday!
