We stumbled upon a terrific event Wednesday at The Woman’s Club of Red Bank. It was the kind of gathering that sharply underscores the borough’s appeal as a cultural hub, one that can compete with the best of them.
Reed Smith, a law firm in Princeton, put together a networking day for its female attorneys and the women at their corporate clients. Fifty women participated. The idea was to give them a chance to get out of their routines, relax and connect on a personal level, says Judy Cristella, an office administrator for the firm.
Now of course, this big-bucks, high-powered crowd could have headed off to Philly, New York or a hundred other places, but “We decided to do a mini-retreat here in Red Bank,” says Cristella.
Why? Well, just look at Exhibit A—their itinerary.
First, the women met at the Woman’s Club, one of the borough’s finest historical treasures (c. 1870). There, they enjoyed wine and hors d’oeuvres while getting manicures and makeovers from the experts at Face FX. Some of them headed up Broad Street to get messily creative at the paint-your-own-pottery place A Time to Kiln. Others satisfied their jones for knitting at Wooly Monmouth.
Heck, they could do all that, if they wanted, and more. This gang is no doubt used to doing it all.
Afterward, they headed to dinner at Buona Sera. And then they finally settled in at the Two River Theater for a performance of “Ain’t Misbehavin’.”
It sounds like a heady, absolutely thrilling and exhausting way to spend nine or ten hours. At least one of the women came from as far away as eastern Pennsylvania, and they all drove themselves here—no bus.
Let’s hope that they had a good time, will spread the word about Red Bank, and come back with their friends and families sometime soon.
Next month wouldn’t be a bad time, for example. Even as the women were schmoozing at the club, just across the hallway was another demonstration of Red Bank’s growing cultural clout, a press event for the Red Bank International Film Festival, which returns for the weekend of Oct. 13 to 15. We’ll have more info on that shortly.
