Chamber Update for the Week!

Many of our businesses were closed on Monday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  To reflect on the day, I had the opportunity to participate and engage in a live video segment put together by local Community Foundations with NY Times best selling author, Heather McGhee.  She is the author of the book "The Sum of Us", which the Niagara Area Foundation board read last year.  It was a great segment that really makes you think about community and decisions made by leaders and how it impacts everyone.  If you get a chance, read it!

Since the office was closed, we fit five days of work into four!

What have we been up to this week?

~Jennifer met with our new Chair of the Lewiston Business Group, Sara Morreale owner of The Rose Hanger in Lewiston.   We went over goals for the group and set the Agenda for the 1/24 meeting.  Please consider attending the meeting if you are a business in Lewiston!  Tuesday, January 24th at 9am at the Lewiston Village Hall Trustee boardroom.

~Jennifer attended the Destination Niagara USA board meeting on Tuesday.  She was just elected Secretary of the board and now sits on the Executive Board of the organization.   The Chamber recently took out a full page ad in the Destination Niagara Visitor Guide for 2023.  Look for that guide in the spring!

~Suzanne has been busy taking care of our Health Insurance members.  New cards have been issued and Suzanne has been making sure all the kinks are worked out with that process!

~Our Chamber is a member of the Association of Chamber Executives, a national organization that assists us in operating best practices for running a chamber.  We attended an Events online roundtable session that helps generate new ideas.  There were about 30 other Chambers on the call and we were able to contribute to the discussion!

~We worked on event work - confirming the stage for our Christmas parade, sending out postcard invites for our February Business Blender, sent out more Jazz Festival sponsorship info and looked ahead to the 2023 festival calendar to start plugging in dates.

~Our board is meeting on Thursday, January 26th.  Our staff has been busy preparing for the board retreat that day in order to maximize everyone's time and coordinate high level strategy!   We even ordered a new whiteboard easel! Let us know if you need to borrow it!

~Our new member Beth Rickard stopped by the office to chat.  We were able to make some copies for her and laminate a few things.  She owns First Nations Copywriter LLC!

~We are meeting with Rich Meranto today, owner of Meranto Media to discuss turning our Roam the Region program into a podcast!   His studio has all of the equipment needed and creators who are ready to assist in making the podcast a success!  We can't wait to see what will come.  If you remember our "Roam the Region" online sessions, you will remember that it was off the cuff and a lot of fun.  

~Last but not least, we bought 2 tickets to the Youngstown Lions Club Cash Bash  on March 18th from one of our favorite Lion members, Ernie.  He is always the first to call us!  Let's hope we are big winners this year!  Fingers crossed!

~Jennifer
President