By Jim Mikula, President/CEO
One year ago, the Chamber board updated our mission to:
Champion Our Business Community Through Collaboration, Information, and Service
Last month, we surveyed the board about our collective performance in 2024. The survey of the board showed that they were more than satisfied with the 2024 results. They were also asked how the Chamber can improve in 2025. Recent meetings have confirmed that we are in alignment about one improvement in 2025 that will have a significant impact: to design/implement all the Chamber’s activities, events, and programs to clearly be “on mission.” If an activity, event, or program does not support the mission, we need to redesign it or eliminate anything that is not “on mission.”
Our Lunch and Learn programs have been in place for several years, and while good, we believe we can do more with a new program, a quarterly Master Class on key topics such as Marketing, Excellent Guest Service, Business Strategies & Tactics, and Employee Training/Retention. The Master Classes will be afternoon sessions from 1:30 to 5:00 pm. The longer programs will enable participants to dive deeper into the subjects at hand. The program will be followed by a wine reception to allow participants to network plus ask more questions of the presenter(s). Currently planned dates are February 25, April 16, August 12, and October 7. The Master Class will allow us to have more attendees than Lunch & Learn and engage more members to be presenters at the sessions.
We will also expand our working committees to involve more members in supporting our community and finding solutions for the challenges affecting our businesses. Four new committees include Arts, Entrepreneur Development, Main Street Merchants and Non-Profts. Ongoing committees are Government Affairs, Housing, iOpener, Leadership Gillespie County, and Workforce Development. Each committee will be chaired by a member of the Board of Directors. We also have working committees for our events: Banquet, Economic Summit “State of the Burg,” Food and Wine Festival, Golf Tournament, and the Light the Night Christmas Parade.
If you are interested in serving on a committee, please call the Chamber or send an email to info@fbgtxchamber.org. Serving on a committee is a path to serving on the Chamber board.
Our incoming board chair, Jay Mallinckrodt of Heartland Enterprises and FBG Cast Iron, also shared his goals for 2025:
• Solidify the Food and Wine Festival’s organization, financial sustainability, and quality along with making charitable donations from the festival starting in 2025.
• Through the expanded committee structure, engage more Chamber members on the committees and expand the Chamber’s positive impact on our local business community.
• Use the Chamber’s influence with local and state government representatives to fulfill our mission to Champion our Business Community and support the overall community to maintain the lifestyle we all cherish about Fredericksburg.
The Chamber board is looking forward to delivering on our mission in 2025 and the Chamber staff is in lockstep with the board.
All of us at the Chamber wish everyone a prosperous new year in all domains, and we urge our little town to keep doing big things!
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