Why Summer Concerts Matter

As I write this, it's cloudy and not terribly warm outside, but after the lovely weekend just past and more good weather to come, a gloomy day is palatable - more palatable that it was a week ago when we had a string of gray days to endure.

Our first concert of the year on beautiful Stephenson Island in Marinette was postponed until a later date due to wind and rain, but skies should be clear on Thursday night for our first Concert in the Park on the Bandshell in Menominee's equally lovely Great Lakes Memorial Marina Park.

Our staff members Joe Plautz and Sandi Brumbaugh work had to make these concerts happen. Our members businesses generously sponsor them. We make a concerted effort to concentrate on local and area entertainers because we believe the concerts are all about appreciating our area's assets.

How many cities have both a riverfront and a bay shore? How many cities have an island in the middle of town and one of the most beautiful marinas on the Great Lakes?

We are darned lucky to claim these natural resources. We are fortunate, too, that good entertainment is within our reach. By choosing local and regional bands, we've found another way to shop local.

By attending an outdoor concert this summer - Peshtigo and Wausaukee have them, too - you are not only supporting our efforts to shop locally first, you are helping us create a sense of community.

That sense of community is what helps us work together. And that, my friends, is what chambers of commerce are all about.

Report from Midwest Institute for Organization Management

>Whew! It's 92 degrees in Madison today, but inside air-cooled Grainger Hall (a new addition to campus since my graduation from Big Red), more than 100 chamber of commerce and association executives and managers are attending "chamber school," the Institute for Organization Management.

"Institute" teaches business leaders how to instill the very best practices in organization management: In the required 96 hours of courses, we are kept updated on legal, financial, governance, communications, leadership, electronic communication, advocacy, team-building, human resources and consensus building issues and techniques.

We hear each year how protecting the organization from costly missteps is one of the CEO's primary objectives. We learn how to do it the right way. We find out what we can do better to serve our members and to strive for excellence.

You can't run a chamber without it.

Our class started out in 2008 - the year floods inundated southern Wisconsin - as 30 chamber managers. The following year, our ranks diminished due to the weak economy, but we were joined by about 15 organization executives. We'll graduate together at the end of this session, but we will no doubt continue to share ideas by e-mail and social media.

It's always good to be back in Madison, even when it's sweltering and humid. It's especially exciting to face a second graduation here, and come away with ideas and strategies for building a stronger chamber to help our members grow and thrive into the future.

Your Business is Our Business

Nearly 18 months ago, we asked you, our members, what direction you want us to take.

Here’s what you said: Spend more time on business development. Offer more opportunities to help us grow our businesses. Enlarge the chamber’s roll in local education efforts.

I’m pleased to report that we are moving in that direction. Many of the community events the chamber was coordinating in years past are in the capable hands of other organizations or individuals. We are concentrating on business!

Thanks to partnership with UW-Marinette and Northeast Wisconsin Technical College, we’ve offered some great new programs.

In the past month alone, nearly two dozen members attended our Cross Cultural Communications Skills workshop at NWTC. During the workshop, conducted by Alem Asres, director of campus diversity for NWTC, participants discussed how to communicate appropriately with a wide range of people.

A week later, we held a workshop aimed at helping businesses determine if they should work with the federal government and its prime contractors. This was another great partnership with the Wisconsin Procurement Institute, the Procurement Technical Assistance Center of Michigan, the Small Business Association and NWTC.

Both of these programs are aimed at helping local businesses handle and benefit from the growth associated with Marinette Marine’s partnership with Lockheed Martin to build more littoral combat ships for the US Navy.

Our May Business for Breakfast featured Lisa Nyquist and Kathy Leone from Northern Initiatives, a Marquette, Mich.-based private, non-profit organization that offers small business loans and provides information and training for small businesses. (We liked the group’s Profit Mastery Class, a 16-hour training program that helps business owners use financial statements as management tools, understand and predict cash flow and plan for and manage growth. If this sounds like a course you can use, call us and we’ll put you in touch with Northern Initiatives.)

Finally, I’m delighted to announce that the chamber is piloting a Teacher Leadership Academy, similar to our Community Leadership Academy. Offered for the first time this summer, TLA will give teachers a chance to get inside area businesses and industries, develop relationships with plant managers and business leaders, share information gleaned from job shadow experiences, and finally, create a classroom project that links curriculum to area businesses.

This new program is a partnership with UW-Marinette’s Department of Continuing Education. Area teachers, school administrators, manufacturers and business people worked together to help develop it. Teachers will earn 3.2 Continuing Education Credits for their participation.
Finally, I want to mention how hard our Chamber Ambassadors have worked on a Shop Local awareness campaign that now includes lapel buttons urging people to buy locally. In the past, we’ve used billboards, Facebook, news releases and window decals. Now, you can show people everywhere you go that you care about local businesses. The buttons were donated by some of the Ambassadors themselves: That’s dedication!

We continue to solicit your input. We are currently working on revamping this publication. Watch for a readership survey sent to you by e-mail in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, drop by on weekdays between 8:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m., call, e-mail or message of via Facebook or our Website (www.mandmchamber.com). We want to hear from you!