Dine-and-Discover Meetings and Events
Our meeting date is the last Wednesday of the month. Special event dates will be announced. RSVPs are due by noon on the Monday prior to each meeting as online registration automatically closes at that time. If registration is closed and you find you can attend, please contact Mary Abshier to check on seating availability.
Below is a menu of programs that are sure to satisfy any intellectual appetite. Join HFCW’s meetings where lifetime learners gather. Be a part of our long history of sharing wit and wisdom with HFCW members and their guests since 1974.
Questions? Contact Mary Abshier at marketing@hfcw.org or 281-923-9241
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Be the Unicorn in Your World
Wednesday, July 31, 2024 @ 11:15 am - 1:00 pm
PROGRAM
For decades, apparel was a bit player in the promotional products marketplace. That changed starting in the 70s. An article written in 1978 stated, “Americans Can’t Get Enough T-Shirts.” A confluence of factors—from the casualization of fashion to the advent of modern screen-printing technology—helped shift the humble tee from underwear to a closet staple and promotional hero.
“Americans seem to have an insatiable desire to identify themselves with the slogans and photos on the T-shirts they wear,” according to an article in the April 1978 issue of Counselor. Indeed, Editor Paul A. Camp stated “Today everyone from dictators to ex-presidents’ wives, for “head” shops to such staid giants as the New York Life Insurance Company use T-shirts to promote their images and hype their products. A Texas woman realized 1979 was the perfect time to start designing and printing T-shirts in her garage.
Watching the men’s and women’s Sweet 16 Basketball tournaments, she recognized how talented the women players are. Looking at businesses owned and managed by women, you see how talented women are. A woman running a company can go as far and as quickly as a man.
You will learn how quickly Trademarks Promotional Products was ranked by Houston Business Journal in the top 25 women-owned business in Houston. Authentic leaders are self-aware, honest, and open in their dealings with others. They have a high emphasis on honesty and integrity. Be the Unicorn by William Vanderbloemen is a book that stresses the habits that separate the best leaders from the rest.
SPEAKER
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Audrey Devenport is the last of a generation who grew up living on a farm in Illinois and attending a one-room country school with 16 other students and one teacher. She remembers doing homework by the light of a kerosene lantern until their house got electricity when she was ten. She learned to entertain the other students by drawing chalk pictures for them to color on the large black boards that covered the front of the school room. She went on to be chosen as one of the top ten seniors in her Southern Illinois University graduation class. She taught high school, and then joined the Red Cross Clubmobile Unit and was assigned to Korea. The first day she arrived, she met a handsome young soldier who had also grown up on a farm. They married after their tours in Korea were over, but then Mike went back as an Artillery Forward Observer to Vietnam for a year. After his tour, they moved to Houston where Mike worked for Arthur Anderson Accounting firm. Audrey taught school and then became a sales rep for an educational company. In 1970, after their daughter, Renelle, was born, Audrey opened a small business designing and selling T-shirts, especially to schools. Renelle loved to help her Mom put designs on shirts. Renelle earned a degree in communications from the University of Texas, and is now the vice president of Trademarks Promotional Products handling a multitude of jobs from sales to computers. Mike joined the company in the mid 80s. With his accounting and business background, Audrey’s sales experience, and Renelle’s overall expertise, the company has grown to what it is today. Trademarks has 125 employees, ten multi-color automatic screen presses, 180 embroidery heads, owns its own 52,000 square foot tilt-wall building in Houston, and has $12,000,000 in annual sales.
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If you plan to attend, please RSVP to marketing@hfcw.org.