FROM THE CHAMBER: Membership Breakfast sets the stage for an exciting new program year
On Tuesday, Sept. 19 the TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce held our first Membership Breakfast of our 2023-2024 program year.
This membership breakfast served as the Chamber’s Annual Meeting. It gave me the opportunity to highlight the great things that we were able to accomplish in our 2022-2023 program year.
As we rolled into the second half of 2022, the TriCounty Chamber finished the celebration of our 95th anniversary. The exciting thing about our 2022-2023 program year was a “normal” year of events! We had the opportunity to fill the calendar, re-engage, and reconnect full-force with our membership. Most exciting for me was the opportunity to not only celebrate the success we were accomplishing in 2022-2023, but to dedicate time to work on our future.
The chamber’s board of directors came together for three, half-day sessions — one in January, February, and March — to evaluate where we have been, where we are, but most importantly to dream big and plan for what the chamber can look like for our members in the future. The brainstorming, open dialogue, and commitment to being the best we can be led our board to re-state our cornerstones to more appropriately represent our focus over the next few years — we will be focusing on Relationships, Resources, and Recognition and we cannot wait to support our members over the next year and for many years to come!
That support over the next year is kicking off with a very full October. October is annually designated as Local Chamber of Commerce month by the governor, and we decided to fill the October calendar with plenty of unique opportunities to build RELATIONSHIPS — one of our new cornerstones. The special events we have scheduled can be found on the event calendar on tricountyareachamber.com.
We are relaunching our “Made In the Tri-County Area Tours;” we are offering Net-Walking; a special social event for our REACH participants; an interactive networking opportunity to work with fellow chamber members to complete a mission at the Montgomery County Community College Challenger Center; and a special “Cigars in the Lounge” event at our chamber member Goose’s Montecristo Cigar Lounge.
But no, that is not all — we are holding our first monthly “Coffee Connection” in October, which is a small group opportunity for members to meet monthly, informally, to continue to strengthen RELATIONSHIPS. We are also hosting a special board of directors meeting to celebrate Chamber of Commerce month and inviting former chairs and board members to join our current board for a special breakfast. Last but in no way least, we are holding our first Chamber Month Expo & Mixer — partnering a Creating Connections Mixer with a Business Expo to showcase our members, and we are looking forward to this event being an annual occurrence on our calendar.
RELATIONSHIP building is going to take an incredible step forward for our chamber as we are going outside of the box and planning our first TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce group trip opportunity to Clearwater, Fla. in February. We cannot thank our colleagues at the Amplify Clearwater Chamber enough as they are helping us plan a great trip showcasing their city and providing us with unique access to their business leaders.
We also announced yet another variation to our Chamber Chat program. Now in its 11th season, we have reduced the frequency of our hosted shows and we will be focusing those shows specifically on community updates. But … we have a NEW TikTok option for our members — “Chamber Clips!” — hosted by our ambassadors and after breakfast we invited members to contact Angela@tricountyareachamber.com to add their name to the list of TriCounty Chamber members to receive this complimentary RECOGNITION.
Another RECOGNTION opportunity announcement at the breakfast was the launch of a 2024 TriCounty Community Guide and Business Directory. We have not produced and printed a guide since the 2019-2020 edition. Producing this printed piece, which uniquely showcases the tri-county region, helps us provide a RESOURCE for our membership and the community at large.
All of these things are not possible without the incredible support of our TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce members. In 2022 we implemented a new Tiers Investor opportunity for our members to participate in bundling their membership with RELATIONSHIP building opportunities, RECOGNTION through various sponsorships, and access and exclusive use of Chamber RESOURCES. Our participation grew from 2022 to 2023 and we cannot thank them enough! The attendees at the membership breakfast were given a sneak peek of the 2024 Tier Investor benefits and we look forward to meeting our members needs and budget with this program and our other options for RECOGNITION.
The TriCounty Area Chamber of Commerce has an exciting fall and incredible 2023-2024 planned and our team dedicates ourselves daily to our primary value — Members 1st and we hope it shows!