I believe there is a record number of networking events at this year's Annual Meeting. Great opportunities all of them, but a few stand out above the others as unique and entertaining ways to get to know your fellow attendees.
WINE TASTING NETWORKING EVENT: At this event, AUTM attendees are transported out of the God-forsaken conference hotel to an exclusive offsite venue to sample some of the best wines that California has to offer. A sommelier provides a brief description of each wine, including its origin and unique bouquet and flavors. My friends at the Cleveland law firm of Tarolli Sundheim (www.tarolli.com) are sponsoring this event, for the managing partner Rich Wesorick is a wine aficionado and couldn't pass up being part of the event. Thanks Rich for making the event possible. (ok, i had to look up how to spell aficionado, but i did know sommelier).
TEXAS HOLD'EM TOURNAMENT: Last year's Texas Hold'em Tournament was such a raving success that we have expanded the number of participant slots for this year's tournament. With an open bar, prizes for first, second and third place finishes, and some intense trash talking and other forms of networking up until the point you go bust - how can you go wrong!?! IPXI is sponsoring this year's event (www.ipxi.com), and in fact they were down to visit our office at Vanderbilt last week to discuss their IP-focused financial exchange - it is worth a look. We approciate IPXI's support in the Tournament's return for a second year.
Both of these event require an additional fee to cover the insultingly high costs of hosting the activities. But they are well worth it. The wine tasting event is very classy, and the texas hold'em tournament is absolutely not, but very well done nevertheless.
Alan