The 500 Club is back. After a couple of months’ break over the winter, Caitlin Duncan and I returned to hosting our networking event series on Thursday 6^th February, alongside our usual co-hosts, Asertis and CAPA.

And what better place to start than Manchester, where we have an office and Asertis are headquartered.

This didn’t disappoint as a kick-off event, as scores of the region’s finest legal, insolvency and finance minds gathered together to catch up with colleagues, peers and friends, and to further develop their networks.

It was great to see so many 500 Club regulars for the first time this year, as well as new faces and new firms being represented.

The venue was North Westward Ho – still a relative newcomer to the Manchester bar scene, and well worth checking out. This was the second time we’ve hosted there.

We introduced a small but noticeable change at the event, which we’ll keep in place for this year’s series – name badges. While we know our guests love the informal nature of The 500 Club events, one of the hardest things about networking is remembering the names of everyone you speak to (particularly as a host when there’s an expectation that you know everyone!). Something else we know works well is not hiding the group away in a private room, but enjoying the atmosphere of the venues we host in. This poses its own challenges, as it’s not always immediately clear where the group starts and ends. The small addition of name badges for hosts and guests solved both problems, hopefully without adding too much formality to proceedings.

I imagine this change helped those people in the room who are earlier on in their career, especially. It was brilliant to welcome a number of ‘rising stars’ to the event, last week. Our events are open to people at all stages of their career and all levels of seniority. We’re big believers in developing your network early on and continuing to do so as your career progresses.

The 500 Club is next in Manchester on Thursday 12^th June. Before then, we have a packed schedule, which will take in London (twice), Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol, Liverpool and Newcastle (with 3 more cities to add later in the year).

Next up is London this Thursday 13^th February. The guestlist for the event is overflowing. In part, that’s down to us receiving so many requests from people to join us for the first time (as we had for Manchester, too). We’re proud that The 500 Club has become an established part of the professional networking calendar in various cities and word has spread that the events are an excellent way to meet and stay in touch with people.

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