September’s Members’ Evening did what it was built to do. People met someone they should have met years ago, and at least two of those conversations have already moved to a second meeting.
So we did it again on Tuesday 13 October. Same room at the Grosvenor Rialto, same method, same cap of forty. Below is what September looked like from the inside — and October ran on exactly the same lines.
What happened in September
When I wrote the invitation to this one, I said the problem with most networking evenings isn’t the room. The right person is usually standing twelve feet away. Nobody puts you in front of them.
On 15 September we put people in front of each other, and I have spent the days since watching those conversations continue in people’s inboxes.
The part that happens before anyone arrives
This is worth saying again because it is the whole method, and it is unglamorous.
Before every Nexus evening I go through who is coming and look for the overlaps. The property developer who needs the tax specialist. The founder raising who should meet someone who has already done it. Two people in adjacent sectors who would refer to each other for years if they ever met.
Then, on the night, I introduce them. In person, with the reason said out loud.
For October I asked directly. The solo booking form carried one question that mattered more than the rest: who would you like to meet? People told me, and I started looking before they walked in.
That is it. It isn’t complicated. It is just work that most events don’t do, and it is why the room is capped at forty — past that, an evening stops being a set of introductions and becomes a crowd.
What the room was like
Buzzing, and specifically buzzing in the right way. Not the polite hum of people waiting for a reason to leave. People were two and three deep at the tables, past the job-title exchange and into the part where someone describes what they are actually stuck on.
That is the part most rooms never reach, and it is the only part that produces anything afterwards.
A few things came out of the evening that I did not plan and could not have: collaborations between people I introduced for one reason who found a better one themselves, and at least two conversations that have already moved to a second meeting. Introductions open a door. What people do once they are through it is theirs.
Thank you to our partners
This evening happens because three organisations decide each month that it should.
- Grosvenor Casinos, for hosting us at the Rialto and sponsoring the venue, as they have consistently for this community. Particular thanks to Nina Inceman and the casino team, who make the logistics invisible. That is the highest compliment you can pay an events team.
- HongKongers Magazine UK, and Pauline Lau, for the sponsorship and for a community partnership that keeps bringing genuinely interesting people through the door.
- V8 Global, and Alan Law, for the steadfast sponsorship and for the vision behind this circle in the first place.
And to everyone who came
Thank you for bringing your ideas and your energy to the table, and for being the kind of guest who makes an introduction easy to make.
A curated room only works if the people in it are worth introducing to each other. Everyone there had been through the same screen, which is what makes an introduction worth accepting rather than merely polite. You held up your end of that.
Be in the room next time
If you came in September or October, you already know how this works. If you haven’t been yet, the next evening is the one to be in the room for.
Evenings are forty seats, because the introductions only work at that size. Express interest through V8 Nexus and you’ll hear when the next date is set.
I read every one of those myself. That’s how the introductions get made.
See you at the next one.