Former Inquirer exec returns to Philly to create networking event for women

SANDRA LONG WEAVER spent roughly 30 years climbing to the top of the newspaper industry, only to be abruptly fired in 2011.

Overnight, Weaver went from being one of the highest ranking people at Philadelphia Media Network, the former parent company of the Daily News, Inquirer and Philly.com, to not knowing if she would ever work again. That's enough to rattle anyone, especially someone as highly thought of as Weaver who'd been a golden girl for her entire journalistic career.

"Basically, I was downsized," Weaver told me last week. "I was very surprised."

The layoff caused Weaver, a breast cancer survivor, to pause and regroup. A divorced mother of two adult children, she remarried and moved to a small town about 30 miles outside of Nashville, where she set about creating a new life for herself. Fast-forward four years and Weaver has reinvented herself as an entrepreneur. She is back in Philadelphia, hoping to resurrect a concept she pioneered at the Inquirer and turn it into a money-making venture.

It's a women's networking event called Tea and Conversations. There's one today from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. at Mother Bethel AME Church, 419 S. 6th St. (Tickets are $45 at the door.) The goal is to bring together professional African-American women to forge relationships and brainstorm ways to improve their communities. There also will be a whole lot of tea sipping going on and a best-hat contest.

Weaver, former vice president for editorial product development for the Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com, came up with the idea nearly a decade ago, while brainstorming ways to get the Inquirer to be more racially inclusive of people quoted in news stories. Weaver invited African-American women from various backgrounds to meet writers and editors at the Daily News and Inquirer. To give the gathering a social vibe, she served tea and other refreshments.

About 50 mostly African- American women showed up at that first tea back in 2005. The next year, 100 showed up. By the time the last Tea and Conversations took place in 2010, roughly 380 women were in attendance, some wearing fancy hats and colorful church suits. Women would stand around chatting until long after the event was over.

I had the chance to attend a few Tea and Conversations and always enjoyed sitting around listening to women talk about their lives and concerns. I met people who typically I might not ever have met - or taken the time to get to know.

"They would bring their mothers and sisters and friends," Weaver recalled. "It was starting to become a Philadelphia tradition when suddenly I had to stop."

She hopes today's gathering at Mother Bethel will be the first of many more to come. This past April, Weaver organized a Tea and Conversations in Nashville on the campus of Tennessee State University and has events planned for Pasedena, Calif., in March and Chicago in May or June.

"The goal is to take it to as many cities as possible . . . just to get women to connect in ways that we hadn't been connecting and to share more about our lives," said Weaver, whose life story I happen to find inspiring. "We need to get our stories out there more often. We're not telling them like we should.

"Everyone has a story to share," she added. "Sometimes it just takes the right cup of tea."