Time to Pull Together

By its very definition, a chamber of commerce is a group of people working together.

We form committees to do just that. The committees are made up of chamber members, and representatives from the community. Our committees perform many tasks and tackle many challenges, from organizing programs like Mini Business World and Career Opportunities Expo to developing relocation materials for area companies to use when they recruit workers or Shop Local efforts to encourage area residents to support local businesses.

We actively seek partnerships with other organizations. We work closely with UW-Marinette, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, Marinette County, and many other organizations. Recently, we've begun to build stronger partnerships with the M&M Area Community Foundation.

In other words, we collaborate. We pull together to harness the power of people working together.

Our community has just experienced a tragedy in one of its schools. It is time to pull together in a bigger way so that the healing can begin and we can prevent such tragedies in years to come.

It is too early to predict how we will work together in the future. Community needs gave birth to the Healthy Youth Coalition a decade ago and the DAR Boys Club (now the Boys and Girls Club) nearly a century ago. But we will work together and we will pull our community through the heartbreak of a young life lost and other lives endangered.

If you are called to serve in any way, please do so. What side of the river you live on is not important. The future of our community - and our young people - belongs to all of us.

Shop Local First

As Thanksgiving Day winds down, many of us are gearing up for Black Friday, the biggest and busiest shopping day of the year. Retailers dubbed it "black" because it's the day that puts them in the black for the fiscal year.

In reality, it all starts the Wednesday before Thanksgiving when the EagleHerald lands on our doorstep with an especially audible thump, chock full of fliers from every big store in town, from hardware stores and drug stores to big-box retailers. It's a good thing we've got a holiday on Thursday because it takes two days to pore over all the shopping circulars.

Rest up and eat well on Thankgiving because you'll need to sustain yourself on Friday. Go to bed early too, because some stores open in the wee hours of the morning, or earlier. One chamber staffer vows to be up and shopping at 4 a.m.

Think of this when you shop: Every time you spend $100 at a locally owned store, $68 stays in the community. When you shop at a local chain store, nearly $50 stays in the community. It's a good deal for everyone.

We're not telling you not to drive to Green Bay or Escanaba to shop. Those cities are part of our region, and some of our neighbors commute to jobs in those cities. But shop locally first; if you can't find it locally, then make that road trip.

On the other hand, as one of our members asked recently, "If you can't find it locally, do you really need it?"

Happy shopping.

Good-bye to an Old Friend

It's sad to see any business close, but the Globe is near and dear to the chamber's heart. So the closing of this venerable furniture store in downtown Marinette leaves a bittersweet feeling.

Tobias Kirmse founded the Globe in 1888. His son, Walter, was one of the founders of the former Marinette Area Chamber of Commerce in 1939. The Marinette chamber is one of our two ancester organiations, along with the Menominee/River Cities Chamber of Commerce.

Two of Walter descendents, John Plouff and Mary Plouff McCarrier, served as chamber presidents in 1968-69 and 1997-98 respectively.

Times have changed in the last 122 years. But through that time, the Globe has remained a retail destination for people who sought high-quality furniture for their homes. It has remained an anchor for downtown Marinette, even when our retail center gradually shifted to the south side of town.

We will miss this established family business, but we are pleased for Mary McCarrier and her family who will now have time to pursue other interests.

Downtown Marinette will survive, and morph into another kind of business center. We are extremely optimistic! The chamber was contacted recently by several businesses considering downtown locations. We are pleased that some of our members have shown interest recently in downtown's revival and we are exciting about working with them in the new year. We don't have to look far to find inspiration: Downtown Menominee!

Meanwhile, we salute the Globe and we thank the Kirmse-Plouff-McCarrier family for its belief in our community.

Celebrate the End of Road Construction Season

Winter is nearly here.

That means an end to the "other season." You know: Road Construction.

In 2010, road work was everywhere. We coped with dust and detours, barricades and big machinery. We grumbled, we laughed and we counted the days until deer hunting season, because that's when we knew it would finally be over. And it was.

We can now drive down Menominee's 10th Street and Marinette's Hall Avenue. Did we mention Shore Drive, 14th Avenue, Cleveland Avenue, 1st Street and County Trunk T?

It's done. For the time being. And we owe a huge thanks to the crews, from departments of transportation in two states to project overseers to the guys who made it happen by operating heavy machinery, laying sewer pipe and wiring street lights. We offer our kudos as well to the businesses who sweated it out, who called us when they had problems, who made us aware of new challenges.

The chamber raised money on the Menominee side to erect way-finding signs on 13th Street so drivers could locate 10th Street businesses. On the Marinette side, we had a modest amount of money left over from 2004-2005 road work, and we used that to create signage. Sometimes our efforts took longer than we - or businesses that were impacted by detours - would have liked. It wasn't perfect. But we did what we could with a combination of radio ads, signs, newspaper stories and Facebook posts. Chambers are generally wealthy organizations, so we had to make a small amount of money go a long way.

We also offered a low-cost customer relations workshop and created printed tip sheets aimed at helping our members create must-visit destinations that would draw in customers, regardless of road work and barricades.

The businesses who took our advice - and the advice of other members who'd been through major road projects - reported positive results. One of our members made it a point to make friends with the road crews and go our of his way to offer top-notch customer service. He happily reports that his business did well during the 7 1/2 months of road construction.

It's over now. I drove through the new Highway 64/180 roundabout today - easiest thing in the world and a real time-and-gas saver. I cruised down 10th Street - smooth.

Yes, it was a rough year. But the wait was worth it.