Thursday night events
April 9th, 2008Meet a future client, a Facebook friend or a date for Friday night at a new networking scene in Downtown Elgin!
If you keep an eye on the Elgin events page you’ve probably already discovered that downtown Elgin is the place to be Thursday night. Starting at 5 (and lasting until 7), DNA and Everyware Inc. are hosting an off-line social networking event at one of our favorite places in downtown Elgin, Public House. There will be a drawing for a Tom Tom One GPS device at 6:30, as well as freebies for everyone. I got an advance freeby, and I have to say it’s something very cool and useful. The event is cash bar (they’ve got some great beer there, by the way), and free appetizers.
At 6, the Gail Borden Library is hosting a Taste of Laos event. As you might know, mid-April is Lao New Year, and I’m not sure what else is being planned, but this might be the only general Lao New Year event in Elgin this year (aside from the festivals at the temples). When there were more Lao students at Elgin High School, the annual event was held there, but I think there aren’t many Lao students anymore at Elgin High, and so interest in the annual event has sort of dissipated. Of course, new year is the major festival on the Lao calendar and the temples in Elgin and Hampshire will be active all weekend. Expect a lot of traffic if you live near one. If you want to try Lao food, you should try to make it to one of the temples. There aren’t many Lao restaurants, so it’s a good opportunity to sample one of the world’s outstanding cuisines.
If you aren’t going to a temple this weekend, you can still get a glimpse of Lao culture at the GBL event, which will include food apparently and traditional dance performances.
I didn’t see your comment early enough to write about these events–sorry! Unfortunately I couldn’t attend either because I spent all of yesterday in a surgery waiting room. Would love to hear a recap of how they went though.
Posted April 11th, 2008 at 10:21 amHi Jessica,
It went really well. The rain didn’t really dampen turnout, and there were a lot of people there, probably more web developers and designers than any other category, which I thought was really neat, since part of reviving the downtown is going to be about recruiting ‘creative class’ industries to Elgin.
It was a big success, and I think the venue was well chosen. Food, drinks, ambience were all just right for this sort of thing.
I hope they do it again. I had a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to the next event!
Posted April 11th, 2008 at 2:32 pm