Close to 200 women are expected to gather in Crossfield later this spring for the 3rd Annual Rural Women in Business Conference hosted by the Crossfield Chamber of Commerce.  

The theme of this year's conference is "Limitless."  Crossfield Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Nicole Vandenberghe says the conference's popularity has led to the increased numbers expected, which in turn has led them to move venues for 2019.

"We have moved venues to a bigger location," Vandenberghe says.  "We're just moving across Highway 2A to the Crossfield Baptist Church.  That's going to allow us to bring in a fifth workshop instead of just four so there's a bit more room and space to separate those workshops a bit better."

Vandenberghe says the reason that's important is that, in the past two events, the workshops have been looked at as the highlight of the day for most of the attendees.  "We have gotten a lot of feedback over the last two years that the workshops have been one of the really biggest draws.  We keep our tickets low.  We actively seek sponsors to help run this event and because of those sponsors, we're able to keep our tickets prices as low as possible.  Our goal with the workshops is, everybody should be able to pick at least two.  It's a smaller group and they're able to get more in-depth into whatever topic that is and our goal is to have them come out of that with the tools and the tricks and the tips ready to go on and continue moving forward with their career."

Workshop topics include advice on developing your business idea for people who are considering going into business for themselves, and "5 Keys to Building a Tribe of Loyal Buying Customers," a workshop focused on customer service. 

The keynote speaker at this year's event is Sarah Golby, a coach, speaker, and facilitator from Drumheller.  Her topic will be "Cut the Noise, Quiet Distraction to Unlock Limitless Potential."

Another thing the women have found valuable at previous conferences has been the networking time that's been set aside.  Vandenberghe explains that this year, there will be more of it.

"We have included networking time throughout the day.  If you come in the morning we have trade show tables set up in the main hall, we have coffee, we have treats and we encourage that networking time.  We've extended the breaks, in the past I think we only had 15 minutes breaks and no bridge to finding the workshops and we found that people were using their networking time to find their workshops.  This is going to encourage more networking"

Tickets for the Rural Women in Business Conference are available now.  Go to ruralwomeninbusiness.ca.

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