Event company seeks to inspire women to follow their dreams [Gazette, The (CO)]

(Gazette, The (CO) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) What else What now Four Colorado Springs women - Sara Boatz, Lisa Dowis, Krista Butterworth and Ligia Felsen - found themselves asking those questions as they looked to the next chapter in their lives.

The answer, they decided, lay in helping other women wrestling with those same questions.

So the four formed an event marketing company, Krisalis Productions, aimed at inspiring women who want to learn, dream and reinvent themselves; the company's first event is this month.

The women drew inspiration for the company from a book by Boatz, "What If What Else What Now " The workbook is designed to help readers determine what they are looking for out of life in areas such as relationships and finances, and create a plan to achieve those goals.

Although they knew they wanted to build off of Boatz's work, the women struggled to find a way to bring the tools of the workbook to the widest audience.

"I thought, OK, what if we did an event," Boatz said. "We can use this (book) as the backbone and have parts throughout the event that will actually help people get through that book. ... Then intersperse it with fun stuff." The women settled on a weekend retreat after seeing similar retreats for women across the country and seeing a lack of such events here at home.

The four founders of Krisalis Productions have diverse backgrounds. Boatz has more than 25 years of experience in strategic marketing communications planning, consulting and account management. Dowis has worked in the cosmetics industry and has worked for several advertising agencies; she's now the marketing manager at The Bank at Broadmoor. Butterworth began her career on Capitol Hill working for U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia and has done public relations and communications strategy work in the Springs. Felsen has more than 12 years of experience in the financial services/market data industries.

But the four women, in their 40s and 50s, found themselves dealing with a common question - the "what now" question.

To help other women answer that question, the retreat will offer "life planning sessions" along with educational breakout sessions on topics such as health and nutrition, skin care, beauty and fashion.

But the founders of Krisalis also want the event to be fun, to feel like "a girls' getaway." Planning the fun parts was one of the easier tasks, they said, as they brainstormed ideas for activities they would enjoy themselves.

The event's "platinum sponsor," Penrose-St.Francis Health Services, had wanted to do something for women related to goal setting and looking into the future.

"We felt we were a good fit for this event, given our commitment to support women and their families getting well and staying well," said Chris Freeman, director of women's services for Penrose-St. Francis.

The women behind Krisalis will use feedback from the retreat to help them plan future events; their ultimate goal is to take the event nationally.

"We're going to really listen to and learn from our participants," Felsen said. "Look back at our experience in both planning and executing, and then go from there." (c) 2013 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.

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