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Emerging Leaders’ event Starting Grounds connects Londoners with community leaders over a cup of coffee.

There are thousands of awesome people doing very cool things in our city, but it can be tough for students to connect with these community leaders. Networking events can be intimidating, and the #LdnONT conversation on Twitter sometimes moves faster than you can read it.

Starting Grounds, an event by local non-profit organization Emerging Leaders, offers Londoners the chance to connect with community leaders — all it takes is half an hour and a hot cup of coffee.

“Starting Grounds is an opportunity for people who aren't connected to the London community as well as they'd like to be to get an introduction to some of the leaders in our community,” explained Amanda Stratton, chair of Emerging Leaders' programming committee.

“They just have coffee — there's no expectation of an ongoing relationship. It's an introduction to the people who can connect them even further into the community so that they can begin to build relationships and become more involved.”

Starting Grounds began last year under the title 15 In 15. The goal was to have each leader connect with 15 people during the event, but connecting busy community leaders with so many other busy people just wasn't feasible. That doesn't mean the event didn't have value, Stratton said. “A lot of people who met with leaders last year did say that they got a lot of benefit out of just that short coffee, so we wanted to keep doing that.”

This year, the event organizers aim to connect each of the 20 leaders with at least three people.

“We wanted to try to make sure that we had a good range of professional backgrounds so that we can serve the greatest number of people,” Stratton said. “We have some people from politics, marketing, academia, health care, law, and we have some business people of various capacities.”

Check out the full list of community leaders at emergingleaders.ca. From there, pick the three leaders you'd most like to meet with, give a short explanation why and list your availability. Registration runs from February 24 to March 10. A few days after registration closes, you'll be notified of the community leader you've been paired with and when you'll meet. Meetings will take place between from March 17 and 30.

“A lot of Fanshawe students come from the rural communities from around London, or even farther afield than that — they probably don't have strong connections to the city yet,” Stratton said. “This is an opportunity to get to talk to some of the leaders in London who are working in their field.”

Starting Grounds is open to Emerging Leaders members only — get your membership at emergingleaders. ca. Fanshawe students can receive a free membership by signing up with their FanshaweOnline email address.