One of the commitments that the Chamber board and staff made this year was to be better listeners.  We committed to paying more attention to our members, asking for their input and getting to know them better.
 
In that spirit, we will begin hosting Chairman’s Coffees.  We will hold monthly events where a small number of existing Chamber members will be invited to meet with the Chamber Board Chair and the Chamber President in a small group setting.  The purpose is to provide a relaxed, casual setting to learn more about our members, their business concerns and challenges as well as their success stories.  Hopefully, this will provide the Chamber staff and leadership an opportunity to become more familiar with our members, allowing us to work toward developing more meaningful programs and benefits.  It should help us to give better information when making referrals to a Chamber member.  We will also be asking those members for suggestions on how the Chamber might improve its services for them.
 
One of our new members, Lattes on Location, will provide specialty coffees and pastries.  A special thank you goes out to Lattes on Location for this generous donation.  These events will be by invitation only, on Friday mornings once a month for the rest of the year.  At the first coffee on May 30^th, we are inviting a small group of our long-time members.  Each month we will try to invite a small group with some similar characteristics.  For example, we may invite members from the same industry to attend together.  Obviously, with over 600 members, we will not be able to invite every member, but we hope to meet with a good representative cross-section of our membership and gain valuable insights about all our members by visiting with the ones that are able to attend.  I hope to see you soon at one of our new Chairman’s Coffees.