Operating for more than 30 years, the SECT Women’s Network continues to expand its membership, programs, and events. The nonprofit organization recently collaborated with Smith College Club of SECT, sponsoring a dinner theater event, featuring a 40-minute performance of Ruth Crocker’s The Secret Life of Louisa May Alcott on Sept. 24 at the Groton Inn & Suites.
During the performance, Crocker as Alcott spoke about the people she admires and the events which influenced her life and work. Immediate past president and chair of the event, Jill Adams, explained that the text in the performance was drawn from Alcott’s diary writings, letters, and journal entries along with excerpts from her book Hospital Sketches, in which she describes her experience as a nurse during the Civil War.
“Louisa May Alcott was really a successful and powerful person in spite of her time,” Adams later said. “She literally became a breadwinner for her family because neither of her parents did really well with that. She did a lot of the same things we do today.”
Adams said she approached Crocker, a member of the network and well-known local performer of Mystic, about the presentation.
“She donated her performance to us for the purpose of helping us raise some funds for the network and to facilitate various programs,” Adams explained.
Adams added, laughing, it felt like a full-time job creating the event and thanked the many people on the network’s board and within their membership who came together, helping any way they could to make the performance happen. Adams’ main objectives were for visitors to have a good time with a topic that was compatible with the purpose of the women’s network, to convey a delightful evening, and for visitors to have a chance to connect with the organization.
“When you work on these things too, it helps for you to get to know people more, so it brings people together as well,” Adams continued. “[The event] was really a lovely pinnacle alignment to have this particular topic, and Ruth Crocker is an absolutely Broadway-level talent…It just worked out perfectly for an evening.”
After rave reviews and positive feedback, Adams said the question has come up of whether the network would plan another dinner theater in the future, which, she added, needs to be discussed by the board.
The board keeps a busy schedule and has been moving forward since its founding in 1976. Adams explained that the network was founded by Millie Devine, who initially created the organization in response to not being allowed into the Men’s Club, which was, at the time, in New London. Decades later, the network has expanded to almost 180 members and has become an asset to the community.
“We offer networking and a monthly luncheon program with a speaker, and that’s the third Wednesday every month,” Adams said, thinking through the network’s usual itinerary. “We try to have speakers chosen to support the focus of the different members, and we have a variety of speakers for that purpose.”
She added that the organization has an ongoing commitment and “big sister” relationship with the Women’s Center of Southeastern Connecticut.
“We try to support,” Adams said, naming examples such as collecting old cell phones or conducting fresh fruit and vegetable drives to support the women’s center’s various programs.
In addition to leading several retreats throughout the year and awarding about four different $1,000 scholarships to local colleges, the network has expanded to having six men as part of its membership.
“They are invited to come...and they are considered to be part of our group 100 percent,” Adams said, adding with excitement that the network recently entered into an endowment fund agreement with the Community Foundation of Southeastern Connecticut.
“It’s the first time we were able to do that, and we’re really pleased about that because that really gives us a new level of longevity and support for our future.”
Adams also chairs the network’s Mastermind Committee, a concept, she explained, that was developed by Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich. She said it’s a classic book about studying success and operating several key principles that support super success in terms of wealth-building and cultivation of companies or personal goals.
“It’s a popular concept because it’s non-competitive; it deals with developing real support for the business’s objectives, and the network sponsors a mastermind program that now has five mastermind groups which have formed out of the network membership to meet at their own chosen times and locations.”
She said the program gives the network another level of potential to help businesses grow.
“We’re unique in terms of networking organizations in several ways,” Adams said. She said it is less expensive to join than other networks in the area and membership in the organization comes with many perks, as well as mutual support throughout the community.
“We’re very enthusiastic; we’re known for our positive energy and community support for one another,” she continued. “What I love about it is that with so many individuals, you really have an opportunity to resource whatever your specific needs are by really getting to do the most important thing in a business network, which is developing relationships. The more involved you are, the more you get to know people, the more mutual support you can uncover.”
The SECT Women’s Network’s mission is to provide members the opportunity to meet other professional and business women and men, to communicate and exchange general and career information, to promote personal visibility and a sense of community, and to develop a constituency for the purpose of examining and speaking out.
For more information, visit www.sectwomensnetwork.org.