I formed the committee to launch BCPC West in Los Angeles in April.

In June, we officially launched with our first meet-up at The Powder Room in Hollywood.

Since then, we’ve had a meet-up every month at the same place, same relative time. We’ve become an inclusive meet-up group. We’re not a user group. We just happen to be a few dozen or more people who share the same challenges, ambitions, and goals when it comes to our professional lives. So when we can get together and make time for each other once a month, it helps to make this contact and stay sane.

In July, we launched our first in a series of three summer panels on lifestyle topics in post. To continue to help make BCPC as accessible as possible, these panels were held on a Saturday afternoon in a central location. They were free. And they were streamed on YouTube so anyone anywhere could watch and participate. They’re all archived forever, so if someone learns about BCPC, they can go back in time and get the same education.

We had Emmy-nominated editors on our panels, and up-and-coming amazing young people with fresh insight. We had people from the creative and technical side, men and women nearly equally at every panel. We aggressively seek to be the change in the industry.

In December, we had our final meet-up of 2016. It was our first with sponsors and prizes. We packed out the bar and had a wonderfully spirited Winter Wonderland party.

As we begin to crawl ahead in 2017, we have so many good things on the horizon. And most of all, we’ve created a safe place for anyone in post who wants to be listened to and advocated for — or just wants to relax!