Jerry Donoghue is founder of the Asheville Compassionate Communication Center and the Inner Presence Coaching Institute in Asheville, NC. Jerry is a Master Spiritual Coach who specializes in training couples to be more compassionate with themselves and each other through his courses and private coaching. He also trains helping professionals in gentle, non-invasive, non-prescriptive approaches to support that rely on the clients’/students’ innate intelligence. He draws on his many years of teaching people compassion communication, self-compassion, and nondual awareness work to create this dynamic Inner Presence Inquiry Work. He shows us in a totally practical and deeply experiential way, how to fully enter, lovingly embrace and be present to the disowned, painful and rejected parts of ourselves. www.ashevilleccc.com

What we’re about

The Small Business Center at Blue Ridge Community College is hosting the 2021 WNC Prospering Conference Virtually on Thursday, March 11 from 8 am until 7:30 pm. For small business owners across the country, the last 12 months have been full of challenges. A pandemic and restrictive regulation made it difficult, sometimes impossible, to keep the doors open and remain profitable. One year later and vaccine on the move, hope is in sight. This year’s Prospering Conference will provide you with the tools necessary to thrive in a recovering economy. What has changed in business that will never go back to what it was? What standard pre-COVID small business practices are set to make a resurgence in a move back to normalcy? Join us and prepare your business to thrive in 2021 and beyond.

Conference Agenda: Positioning and Marketing your Brand to thrive in the new post-pandemic economy 8 – 9 AM | Speaker: Gary Heisey, Brand Door Innovation and Resiliency: Reinvent your Path to Success in 2021 9:15 – 10:15 AM | Speaker: Sara Benoit, JB Media Institute A Recipe for Social Media Success 10:30 – 11:30 AM | Speaker: Aaron Wesley Means, ACTIVATE Management Practices for the Small Business Owner during an Economic Recession 12 – 1 PM | Speaker: Bob Papes Using Analytics to Develop your Business Platform 1:15 – 2:15 PM | Speaker: Boomer Sassmann, Big Boom Design Driving Traffic to your Business’ Website using Pay-Per-Click 2:30 – 3:30 PM | Speaker: Boomer Sassmann, Big Boom Design Ever wonder New Success Tools to grow your B2C, B2B and B2G Customer Base 4 – 5 PM | Speaker: Gary Heisey, Brand Door Financial Strategy and Management for

Looking to expand your professional network?

Uneasy about networking?

Mega Networking is for you!

Whether you are a seasoned networker or are overwhelmed by traditional networking minglers, you’ll find a place at Mega Networking. In a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, meet face-to-face with business prospects from a variety of industries and gain exposure for your company. Mega Networking takes a structured, “round robin” approach, allowing you to make valuable connections in the course of three hours.

Our friends at Holiday Inn Biltmore West have helped us plan a safe environment for us to host this event. We will provide social distancing by using three rooms for the event, limiting attendees to 4 people per table, and limiting the number of tables in each room. Morning refreshments and coffee will be provided.

Masks will be required and social distancing monitored. Entrance through one door only (look for Chamber signs) and be prepared for a temp check.

Helpful tips:

• Practice your “elevator speech” ahead of time so you can share your most important information in one minute.
• Bring a little something to help others remember you and your business (something visual yet simple, AND your business card).
• Stay “portable” — you’ll be moving from table to table throughout the morning.
• If you’re a newcomer to this event, arrive a little early so you can settle in comfortably at your first table and learn the flow of the event without being rushed.
• Schedule time now on your calendar to follow up soon with those you meet.

Space is limited to 52 attendees.

Cost is $30 per Chamber member, $50 for other attendees.
Limited to 1 attendee per organization and five attendees per business category.

Table Host Sponsorship – $100. Showcase your business with a creative centerpiece and facilitate each round of networking at your table throughout the morning.

Webinar to help you expand your customer base and tap into regional demand for local food.

Whether you are the next generation on the farm obtaining your GAP Certification or an established producer with GAP Certification looking to expand your customer base, this webinar will offer an overview of direct market opportunities and moving toward selling wholesale. Strategies for tapping into regional demand for local food will be discussed.

Our Financial Series is made up of two distinct classes that, when taken in order, comprehensively cover the basic financial skills and tools that every entrepreneur needs to start and run a successful business.

Tickets for each class can be purchased individually, but if you know you want to attend both classes, we recommend purchasing a discounted Financial Series Pass.

Classes included in the Financial Series:

Financial Tools, March 12 + 19 – Financial Tools will introduce you to the tools to understand the basics of business finance so you can make informed decisions on how to organize and manage your business finances. Topics discussed are record keeping; bookkeeping; accounting; creating, understanding and using financial statements and reports. Individual Price: $50

QuickBooks Online, March 26 + April 2 – this class provides an overview of QuickBooks and the different subscription levels, and will teach you how to navigate the dashboard and explore the reporting feature to generate reports that can be customized to your needs. When you complete this class, you’ll know the best ways to get around, enter day-to-day transactions, get the information you need out of QuickBooks, and powerful report tools that’ll help your business make good decisions. Indvidual Price: $25

Financial Series Pass: $60

Makers Mixer 

Special Guest: Emma Churchman

Join us on Friday March 12, for an informal virtual gathering of artists and creatives from the Western North Carolina region and beyond. This is a relaxed networking event that will begin with a brief introduction and presentation to provide a glimpse of the upcoming 2021 Spring Craft Your Commerce Workshop Series, then we will hear from guest presenter, Emma Churchman on Soul Selling. After the presentation, Emma will hot seat a few volunteers around your thoughts and challenges on selling. We then will use the breakout rooms capacity in Zoom to create networking and connecting opportunities.

Come join us! This event is free and open to any craft or creative based business.

Join us this month… on the 1st dark moon of the month… a powerful time of dissolving and rebirthing! This is a night retreat of releasing… and getting ready to rebirth into the New MOON coming up!
Every month, there is a portal opening of the Lunar Gateway… in which the UNIVERSE offers us an opportunity, the few days just before the NEW MOON… it is a time of rebirth and renewal… but also a time of death. We have have an opportunity to let go… to release consciously what no longer serves us. In our society, we have lost our connection with the transformational alchemical powers of the Great Mother… and many times we fear death and darkness. Yet in the darkness is really where all possibilities are born from… and we cannot birth something into existence… until we have made room by releasing and dying to the old.
During this night… we will focus on releasing, dissolving and rebirthing during the Dark MOON lunar evening as we prepare for the new creation on the New Moon. During this portal we have the opportunity to purify our being… our minds… our emotions, our heart and our soul…. letting go and releasing the veils that stand between direct experience with the Divine and allow us to consciously re-pattern our selves.
During this Lunar Medicine Retreat, we will focus on the monthly theme of the New Moon astrological sign and the wisdom it is bringing in for us to embody. Naturally, we will also have an opportunity to clear conditioning, emotions and wounding of the past. For some, it is also an opportunity to clear the Ancestral and personal wounding that we, as women have inherited. This wounding has been passed on unconsciously through generations of women that have come before us… and at this time of the Golden age, we are here to consciously heal these wounds and step into our Sovereignty and Sacred Power. This is something that our ancestors have known for many lives… and we have unconsciously come to incarnate at this time, when it is possible to awaken to the magnificence power of our divinity.

We will meet in the evening of the dark moon, days will vary… depending on when the New Moon is occurring . We will meet at 8:00pm and dive into a sacred embodied experience of the Lunar Gateway. Through sacred invocation, intentions, direct transmission, chants and transformational healing we will clear the old and make space for the new… as we recalibrate our rhythm to cycle with the moon!

This event is FREE, but we kindly accept donations.
~Dr. Leonor Murciano-Luna

Evening will consist of:
Breathwork, somatic, transformational, purification practices and sound/voice /drumming healing codes.
Sharing/Questions and Answers
Essential Oils/Smudging.
Helpful things to bring:
Yoga Mat
Shawl or Head covering
Blanket for cover
Journal

Learn more and register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/dark-moon-medicine-releaserebirthrenewal-online-tickets-141346444019?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

Facilitated by Gwynne Rukenbrod Smith, Craft Your Commerce Project Manager. This 5-week cohort experience will aid existing makers and creative entrepreneurs in integrating learnings and skills from the workshops series into their business practices. Join a group of your cohorts and analyze all aspects of your business, identify where you could improve your business, and implement the ideas shared in each workshop.

These Live Labs are held throughout the workshop series. They are intended to answer any questions that you have after the workshops, help you implement any skills and ideas you learned, and get feedback from both the facilitator and your cohorts. Finally in this class you will develop 3 goals you want to achieve in your business and create an implementation plan to achieve those goals.

The Crafting Commerce Cohort (C3) Labs is part of the Craft Your Commerce Workshop Series the Craft of Selling.

Hosted by Rising Fire Shamanism
Cultivate presence in your life through direct experience. Join us to learn and use an ancient healing technique during each class.

About this Event
*** JOIN US FOR POWERFUL PRACTICES FROM WHEREVER YOU ARE!***
In response to the economic difficulties brought on by COVID, Rising Fire Shamanism is offering our Tuesday Night Shamanic Practice class for free beginning in February 2021 going through December 2021.
Tuesday Night Shamanic Practice class helps cultivate presence in your life through shamanic practices, sacred play, meditation, and centering techniques.

Learn how to transform and release dense energy from your body, mind and energy field. We do this while strengthening our refined energy, or “sami.” The idea is to build our living energy, our “kausay,” with mindfulness. We focus on different methods of experiencing directly each week to build or to enhance the foundation of your personal work.

This class is for the curious and those who would like to refine their personal practices. You will have the opportunity do something different each week; shamanic breathwork, journeying, meditation and more.

Learn more and register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tuesday-night-shamanic-practices-tickets-112043045766?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch