After 11 years of bringing you local reporting, the team behind the Vancouver Observer has moved on to Canada's National Observer. You can follow Vancouver culture reporting over there from now on. Thank you for all your support over the years!
Drinks, dance, networking and social change at Board of Change's Vertality on March 14
Board of Change co-founder Monika Marcovici is sending out the invitation to come and enjoy networking and party at Vertality 3
Interested in sustainability? Imagine green business networking opportunities on the level of TEDx, only with dance music.
You're invited to Vertality, "Vancouver's social change bash for getting the Spring started" hosted by progressive business group Board of Change.
On March 14, you can join hundreds of Vancouver's top change makers in a first-class celebration of all things green at Club 560 (560 Seymour)
”One of our driving philosophies is: if it's not fun, it's not sustainable," Board of Change co-founder Monika Marcovici said. "Last year, 600 people came to Vertality and people are about doing projects through connections they made at the party they wouldn't have had a chance to get to make otherwise."
Green over Grey, for example, got a contract with the international software giant SAP, "a highly visible project ", Marcovici notes.
Green Over Grey also got work with City of Surrey because word got around about Living Walls through SAP.
At Vertality3, there'll be more than networking taking place: stilt walkers in costumes, an organic taste test station, a chocolate tasting bar and a costume photo booth where you can dress up as your favourite climate hero. Taste Lounge is a new restaurant that is part of Club 560 and the Executive Chef, Renaldo Decembrini believes strongly in local organic food. There will be tantalizing appetizers and tasters from Taste passed throughout the evening.
A progressive version of the Vancouver Board of Trade
And while you're signing up for the party, consider joining Board of Change, which Marcovici describes as a progressive professional's version of the Vancouver Board of Trade.
"By uniting the progressive businesses, the Board of Change can have a voice in politics and how politics affects business and every aspect of our lives," she said.
Consider this: a few years ago, the Board of Trade came out against the new downtown bike lanes and spoke out against them up at Council Meetings where the fate of the bike lanes was being decided.
“There were no businesses that showed up and said “we are in favour of the bike lanes”.
Coinicidentally, there was a Board of Change event the very night that the council meeting took place and 80 businesses signed a letter in support of the bike lanes. This one letter had a huge influence on that council meeting and ulitmately helped to sway the decision in favour of the lanes.
From Vienna to Vancouver: Apple engineer, environmental activist
Marcovici has an extraordinary business background herself. The mother of "two crazy two year old twins, and a nine year old stepdaughter" has an engineering degree, has worked as a systems engineer, a yoga teacher and an environmental activist.
Born in Vienna, Austria, Marcovici worked at Apple Computer as a marketing engineer in the European head office in Paris. But everything changed when she came to Vancouver for the first time in 1991.
"I had been travelling and met some people who lived here and decided instantly that this was home," she said.
She came back to Vancouver and founded ounded a multimedia company called Magik Productions, which did corporate interactive media, animations, video. "People could click on things back when businesses were still mystefied why they'd want their own website." She also founded Greenworx (formerly GreenDreams), which specialized in communications for environmental groups, including Greenpeace.
A conversation with her friend, Sonny Wong (of Hamazaki Wong Marketing Group), gave birth to the idea of a "Board of Change" alternative for progressive businesses.
"He's a very creative person, he comes up with 100 great ideas a day...When he told me about this idea, I felt that we needed to have this in Vancouver. It needed to exist. And I knew that if it was going to exist, I would have to start it."
Fast forward three years, and Board of Change has more than a thousand members, including VanCity, SAP, SFU Beedie School of Business, City of Vancouver, Mechanical Contractors Association of BC, Offsetters, and many more.
You'll get to know meet many of them, and Marcovici herself, at Vertality next Thursday.
For more information and tickets, go to Board of Change 's website: http://www.boardofchange.com/
More in Business
Speak up about this article on Facebook or Twitter. Do this by liking Vancouver Observer on Facebook or following us @Vanobserver on Twitter. We'd love to hear from you.