Calendar of Events

Halloween can be just as much fun for adults as it is for children—especially if you find creepy things fun to play with! Indulge your dark side this Halloween weekend by creating a creepy curiosity cabinet!

Curiosity cabinets were pieces of furniture or entire rooms where 19th century people displayed items they had collected in their travels or scientific investigations. These Victorians also had a fascination with the morbid and peculiar juxtapositions of people, animals, and things.

In this frighteningly fun workshop, mixed media artist Kate Corcoran will show you how to create a miniature curiosity cabinet that you can pull out each October or display all year round. In the process, you’ll learn how to compose, layer, and adhere mixed media materials: skills that you can apply to all mixed media projects!

With climate change, automobile dependency, and rising costs for housing and transportation, America needs to reverse suburban sprawl and focus again on our cities and small towns now more than ever. This won’t happen to any meaningful extent without small scale development, and lots of it. Zoning reform and incremental development education will be key to making it happen.

In this session, you’ll learn about how Buffalo’s 2017 zoning overhaul made a walkable, transit friendly development legal again. We will talk about how it is helping enable small scale projects, create wealth for working people, and rebuild a legacy Great Lakes city that despite losing half of its population from 1950 to 2010, is now America’s fastest growing Rust Belt city.

Doors open at 5:30pm and the session begins at 6pm.

Building Our City is presented by The Grove Arcade Public Market Foundation with support from Kimpton Hotel Arras. The series is produced by the Asheville Downtown Association Foundaiton and Urban3

The WomanUP celebration on Nov. 3rd is the event of the year for women in business.

Connect with hundreds of Asheville/Buncombe women in business.

Celebrate outstanding women in our business community. Over 50 women have been nominated for this year’s WomanUP awards. Together, we’ll honor these amazing WomanUP award nominees and celebrate this year’s winners.

Be inspired by Caroline Wanga’s keynote. You’ll see why her witty “real-talk” style and insights make her a highly sought-after keynote speaker, equity strategist, thought leader, and community influencer.

Wanga is the Chief Executive Officer of ESSENCE, the number one media, technology and commerce company dedicated to Black women and communities. She joined ESSENCE after serving as former Chief Culture, Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Target.

Her keynote promises to inspire us to live into our authentic selves and create work environments that embrace the authenticity of all.

Join America’s top leading real estate producers to learn about what it takes to get your business and listings to the next level!

Held in Downtown Asheville’s Renaissance Hotel, this jam-packed real estate seminar features a distinguished panel of national top producers. Join Rowena Patton (#1 Team in Western, NC), Marti Hampton (#1 Raleigh Resale Team for 8 Years) & Amy Wienands (#1 Team in Iowa) as they detail the concrete steps to launch your real estate career to new heights.

Learn how to:
• Master strategies and outperform your competitors during a shifting market
• Overcome objectives and gain more listings
• Turn a fixed mindset into a growth mindset
• Apply habits to increase your production

Exclusive offer TODAY!
Use our promo code to get 85% off your ticket price!
Check out with Promo Code: ELEVATE

Interactive workshop for adult beginners wishing for a stage to shine on (or behind), with a scriptwriting lesson and mock auditions using scenes from the feature script ‘BILLIE’S SONG, AN URBAN FAIRY TALE’.

This fun lesson and opportunity to get up perform is an introduction to the ‘BILLIE’S SONG’ Theatrical Readings Project being planned for Spring 2023. The script has half Black characters and half White (with a few roles that can be other). For the theatrical readings we will be recruiting community members from diverse neighborhoods to be both cast and creative team, with wardrobe, props, and set pieces all obtained in a community scavenger hunt or created by community members. The goal will be to rotate performance locations, from an art gallery to a church to a public housing community center to a storefront business, to draw-in people who wouldn’t normally turn out together.

Script Synopsis: Billie, a struggling working-class Black actress estranged from her family, becomes involved with Benjamin, an emotionally conflicted wealthy white man angling to secure a leadership position he has on a probationary basis. Initially, Billie and Ben amuse, then need and support each other. But the differences in their communities—and the personal demons they don’t reveal to each other—eventually put them up against each other in a potentially violent fight for survival (for Billie physical survival, for Ben spiritual vs face-saving survival).

“I think the script is wonderfully written, well-paced, fun, and serious without taking itself seriously. I especially love the ending!” – Erin Clare, Story Parlor founder, formerly Creative Director of the Austin Film Festival and its Writer Conference

Led by Trayce Gardner (Writer/Teacher/Guerilla Filmmaker/Community Organizer) and recent refugee from Brooklyn, NY, where she taught beginning scriptwriting and short filmmaking classes for seven years at New York City College of Technology’s Continuing Ed.

Speaker(s): Candy Williams

Chris Larsen
Christopher Larsen is the founder and Managing Partner of Next-Level Income. Since “retiring” after 18 years in the medical device industry, he dedicates his time to helping others become financially independent through education and investment opportunities. Chris has been investing in and managing real estate for over 20 years. While completing his degree in Biomechanical Engineering and M.B.A. in Finance at Virginia Tech, he bought his first single-family rental at age 21. Chris expanded into development, private lending, buying distressed debt and commercial office, and ultimately syndicating commercial properties. He began syndicating deals in 2016 and has been actively involved in over $500M of real estate acquisitions. In addition to real estate, Chris has invested in equities, oil & gas, and small business lending, as well as being active in Venture South, one of the nation’s Top 10 Angel Investing groups. Chris lives with his wife and two boys (and Viszla, Lucy!) in Asheville, NC, where he loves spending time with them outdoors and enjoying the food and culture the region offers.

Bryce Robertson
A native of Australia, Bryce dropped out of high school with no knowledge of business or entrepreneurship at the time. After a few years in the underground gold mines and 6 years of world travel, Bryce met the love of his life, and planted his feet firmly in the USA.

From there, Bryce turned a negative net worth, $2,000 and unseasoned credit into financial freedom in 2.5 years. During the process he created order, peace and prosperity in his life and in the lives of those around him.

Through his respect for the power of money, Bryce leads the Cultiv8 Collective Inner Circle by investing in creating FREEDOM!
With a strong desire to enhance physical and mental toughness, Bryce enjoys challenging himself in outdoor adventure sports and athletic endurance competitions. Bryce loves traveling and adventuring with his wife and their dogs, and expresses his creativity through drumming.
Bryce along with industry leading experts, inspire and empower “Freedom Hackers” to live in true fulfillment, living their soul’s purpose, and expressing their FREEDOM through the videocast and podcast Freedom Hack Radio.
Bryce is host to the life-altering 2-day live and virtual Financial Freedom Mastery, where participants create their own fully-customized Financial Freedom action-plan in order to create Financial Freedom in their lives as soon as possible.

Looking for a great holiday gift? You’ve probably seen these super soft, super snuggly blankets in your favorite home goods store for over $100. Now you can make your own for a lot less, once you learn the technique. No knitting experience required!

Non-knitter Pam Robbins will step you through the process. First, she’ll show you how to “cast on” to start your project. Then, you’ll learn how to “knit” your blanket until it’s approximately 45”x 60”. Finally, Pam will show you how to “bind off” your piece to give it a professional look. And you’ll do all of this using just your hands; no needles required!

The NC Farmers of the Foothills, initiated in 2020, is an alliance of farmers looking to pool resources and market their goods to the community.  There are opportunities to sell with an online marketplace, multi-farm Community Supported Agriculture, and other local food purchasing programs.  The alliance also looks to share in costs of production and other expenses.

Join us to learn and have input on this alliance for 2023.

Dinner will be served.

Join WNC Medicinal Herb Growers for an afternoon of networking with fellow growers, wholesale buyers and other professionals working with medicinal herbs. Highlights include:

• Buyer presentations and “most wanted” lists
• Opportunities for growers to share product samples of available herbs and planting stock
• Small group roundtables with local and domestic buyers
• Networking and celebrating medicinal herbs grown in North Carolina

Speaker(s): Vanessa Garcia

The French Broad River is an economic driver for our region supplying drinking water, providing recreational opportunities, and ecology diversity as recently highlighted by an economic impact study commissioned by the French Broad River Partnership.

Join us for Policy on Tap to hear from business and nonprofit leaders working to ensure that the French Broad River will continue to be an asset for us all and how you can get involved.

Policy on Tap is the Chamber’s quarterly discussion series highlighting topics that matter to our business community with insights shared by key leaders and experts.