Face2Face Mission: To provide a positive place to meet others in job search, whether between jobs or on the job. To encourage networking not only between jobs but while in a job. To enhance chances to network. To coach in better, easier ways of networking. To challenge job seekers to "work smart" in their search. To use technology in a crucial support role.

Status: Face2Face is an organization owned by Meehl & Balzotti Career Services. Proceeds from any meeting go toward paying expenses or investing in additional services for members.

Your Facilitator: Joanne Meehl facilitates the F2F Boxborough meetings. She is the lead principal of Meehl & Balzotti Career Services and has over 20 years helping literally thousands of people in job transition. For two years (2003-2005), Joanne Meehl was facilitator of WIND West in Westboro, which grew to over 30 job seeking professionals attending each week, even as the economy was getting stronger –- because smart job candidates recognize the value of face-to-face networking. for over three years, she was a Career Consultant with Lee Hecht Harrison, on their Raytheon Project. Earlier, while a Career Specialist at federally-funded Career Center, she was first called "The Resume Queen". Joanne is a Certified International Job and Career Development Coach, and a qualified (certified) Myers-Briggs practitioner.

The role of Facilitator is to:

• Ensure that the meeting is set up in such as way as to encourage participation and, of course, networking
• Secure excellent speakers
• To keep the meeting moving and on track
• To recruit volunteers from among members and recognize their contributions
• Communicate dates and times of meetings so that there's strong attendance
• Publicize each meeting to the general media
• Publicize each meeting to outplacement companies, career coaches, and others so that they send their clients to the meetings for you to meet and network with
• To be the liaison to the hosting facility
• Pay the bills
• Work with the webmaster in developing and maintaining a supportive and continually refreshed web site
• To resolve problems as they arise, so that Face2Face can pursue its mission in helping you get to your next job

History: In 2004, Joanne Meehl founded the Route 2 Job Search Network, a job search networking group for professionals who live along the Route 2 corridor in north central Massachusetts. The area had experienced tremendous growth since the late 1990s and needed this service. The group met in Leominster on a monthly basis for most of its first two years. In 2005, with changes in the schedule of the hosting church where we met, we switched to meeting on Wednesdays. We have kept the Wednesday meeting date because it does not conflict with other local job search networking groups.

By 2006, requests had grown for a location more accessible to 495. So we moved to our current facility in Boxborough. And because the group would be serving a more broadly-based population geographically, we decided to change the name as well. In March 2006, the Route 2 Job Search Network became Face2Face Job Search Networking, or Face2Face (F2F) for short.