2013 was a year for Planting

In 2013 Costa Women grew as a patchwork of different nationalities, living in different regions of Spain, sharing different languages, exchanging ideas and stories of life in Spain. 

Seeds were planted when 1,135 new members joined the Costa Women community during 2013 representing arrivals from 58 different countries.  Thank you so much for sharing the Costa Women community with your Friends and Contacts.  

We met 52 of these Women individually via our weekly Featured Interview Section

Seeds were watered at 62 Costa Women events including some new locations and new hosts for 2013 including Madrid (Maxine Raynor), Valencia (Nitu Chugani), Granada (Wendy Booher), Tenerife (sandi europe), Fuengirola (Anita – Early Bird Meet ups and Ivette C. Lopez – Intercambio), Marbella (Joy Fahey – Business Breakfast) – thanks to all our hosts for keeping the network growing!

These Ladies have all supported the Costa Women ethos and created friendly events for new and existing members to attend, connect, share and be part of the party. 

If you want to start, or attend a Group in your area please complete the survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/BLYDL6X

We also enjoyed purely Business focused events when we

• took part in Marbella Womans Week
• Hosted Marbella Business Workshop: Marketing Made Simple with Georgina Shaw of Shaw Marketing Services, Pancho Campo of Chrand Management and Joy Fahey Motivational Coach 
• Were joined by two International Speakers; Jenny Garrett executive coach, mentor, founder of Reflexion Associates leadership consultancy and author of Rocking your Role. And Vanessa Vallely Founder of the Networking site – wearethecity.com, a recognised expert in person-to-person business networking and author of ‘Heels of Steel’  If you missed Vanessa’s presentation you can download a copy here Vanessa_Vallely_Power_of_Profile.pdf

Our flowers came into bud when we won an international award from The Telegraph for Best Social Club 

And “Expats Stars” under the “Top 10 Websites for Expat Women” from MyCurrencyTransfer (see here)

Enjoyed TV coverage via Mijas TV (thanks Karen McMahon) the resulting video on YouTube gives a good explanation of Costa Women and would be ideal to share with any friends who want to know more about our community. 

Flowers were given

When you helped raise a total of 4,374€ for various charities in 2013.

We were able to donate

• 1040€ through the 50 shades of Pink Party in February to Positively Pink (organised by Marina Nitzak) and to
• Bancosol Alimentos a total of 3,334€ thanks to three events; Its Raining Men (organised by Lisa Marie Robinson), Summer Fusion Party (organised by Marina Nitzak) and Christmas Cracker Party (organised by Fia Ensgård, Katarina Stenback and Nahida GJ).  This meant a total of 55,500 kilos of food was given to local families in the Malaga province!  Thanks Ladies.

We also launched our very own Costa Women Book – Diversity Meets Creativity with all proceeds from the sale being donated to Cudeca Hospice.  The Book contains contributions by 27 Costa Women members including jacket design, stories, poems, thoughts, illustrations and even publisher.

You can download a copy of the book in either ebook or paperback format from Amazon websites in the UK, Spain and USA

Enjoyed the blossoms

You shared 457 stories, thoughts and ideas under Blogs

You created 211 new discussions under the Forums

You created, attended and have been part of 560 events

Nurtured seeds

With the 2334 friends and followers on Facebook and set up an Interests list where your Facebook business pages are shared 

Networked with 3358 followers on Twitter @costawomen as well as 600 members listed https://twitter.com/costawomen/costa-women

So… what are we growing for 2014?

Can’t wait to share ideas for next year with you.  Thank YOU for being part of our ever growing community.