Chena Jackson has been named the new director of the Y Black Achievers Program.
A native of Ellerbe, Jackson graduated from Livingstone College with a bachelor’s degree in social work in 2007. She is a foster care worker with the Davidson County Department of Social Services.
She owns Fab-Bu-Less custom made jewelry.
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Carmen C. Wilder led the March 21 session of Black Achievers on networking and event planning. Wilder is director of alumni affairs at Livingstone College and is also responsible for Annual Giving.
A native of Asheville, Wilder has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Livingstone College and a MBA from Franklin University, Columbus, Ohio.
Wilder stressed the importance of self presentation, including achieving the highest education, being articulate, using the proper language, being punctual, dressing properly, using direct eye contact and conducting ourselves properly.
“You should be constantly working to achieve your goals,” Wilder said. “As achievers, we should be striving to be the best,” she said.
Wilder introduced the concept of “six degrees of separation,” which is is being six steps from knowing everyone in the world. (Everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who knows somebody!)
At her instruction, we paired up and wrote down 10 things the partners had in common. After we finished, she had us present our list. Things which were already mentioned by a previous team were deleted to prevent duplication of items. The purpose of the exercise was to show us the basis of networking and how it can help us in our daily lives.
Networking can be done with all people no matter what the subject is. Some types of networking are MySpace, Facebook, other social networking sites, cell phones, seminars and Skype.
Our second exercise was on event planning. Wilder said the steps of event planning are develop a strategy, create an event checklist, create a budget, market the event and evaluate the event.
We divided into two groups, with each group planning an event. The presentation of each event was judged by steering committee members Yolanda Byrd and Mercedes Trammell. This exercise became a friendly competition (like UNC Tar Heels vs the Duke Blue Devils in basketball).
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Brian W. Harris is staff writer for the YBlack Achievers.