Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to be in a room full of almost 1,000 women. It was part of the Virginia Women’s Conference at the Virginia Beach Convention Center hosted by Senator Mark Warner. I think we filled up the entire building! The energy at the conference was incredible - especially when you looked around and thought about what these women had to do to get there. Panty hose, party dresses and pumps for a day-long Saturday event. Everyone looked incredible! I was there to moderate a workshop on how to build a thriving community. We had several hundred women joining us and we were so excited to talk with so many people about this topic. For those of you who don’t know, locally, I am one of the founders of a local group called the Women’s Forum of Coastal Virginia. And when I presented this idea, of helping other people create their own communities, their own tribes, I wasn’t sure if my group or the conference organizers would agree this was a worthy topic. But they all said yes, and we got the chance to tell our story. What you'll learn in this episode: *The reason we decided to create The Women's Forum of Coastal Virginia *How we found like-minded people to be a part of the founding team *How we make it work, since we're all volunteers! *The six steps we took to build this thriving community Click here to download the pdf, "6 Steps to Building a Thriving Community." Links mentioned in this episode: *Interview with Todd Cochrane, the CEO of RawVoice (podcast hosting service Blubrry) *STANDOUT with Cheryl Tan Community on Facebook *The Women's Forum of Coastal Virginia Facebook page Did you enjoy the show? Please subscribe to the STANDOUT with Cheryl Tan podcast on iTunes here.