By Paul Moore
Going forward under the new leadership of Paul Moore and a new Board of Directors, you will begin to see a lot of changes at the Marion County Chamber of Commerce.
The Chamber has unveiled a new logo emphasizing Marion County, but also the Historic nature of the City of Jefferson.
Supporting these new changes includes a new Vision and Mission Statement. The vision of this new board and leadership says we will support and promote innovative growth in the historic City of Jefferson and the greater Marion County. And, with a Mission Statement to back all this up saying we will be promoting the success of all members by bringing together resources for the betterment of visitors and our community.
Further re-branding of the Chamber includes a new motto: “We Aim To Please” with an arrow in the Bull’s Eye target board with a silhouetted crowd looking on. According to Moore, “We are aiming to please our Merchants with more community events drawing more tourist visitors to our area.”
We are in our new location at 111 E. Austin Street downtown, in the remodeled old city police station. We’re adding a covered deck to provide outdoor seating with small bistro tables and we’ll be having Friday and Saturday morning doughnuts and coffee soon
We’re bringing back to life our Ambassador’s Club where you will see Chamber volunteers on Golf Carts providing sidewalk assistance in directions and being helpful to our foot traffic on busy Jefferson weekend streets, again working out of the new Chamber location. The focus of our Ambassador’s volunteer group is headed up by Peggy Walker. If you’d like to get involved, reach out to her either via the Chamber or on FaceBook.
We also have Senior Citizen Memberships at $50 for those over 65. This is a great way to both support the Chamber and save some money.
Lastly, the following email addresses are provided for direct contact with the Chamber.
info@marioncountychamber.org – The front office for general info, Ramona Waldon
marketing@marioncountychamber.org – Preston Taylor, Marketing
accounting@marioncountychamber.org – Gala McCray, bookkeeping
director@marioncountychamber.org – Paul H. Moore, Interim Director/President
The Chamber Board of Directors includes Paul H. Moore, President; Jim Kale, Vice President; Mary Spearman, Secretary; Robert Wooley, Treasurer; Hollis Shadden; Colt Johnson; Barbara Stoker; Hunter Bonner; Tracy Vaughn and Doug Thompson.
With the idea of “Getting to Know You Better”, the Chamber is launching a monthly “Monday Morning Breakfast Mixer” where we will be invited to arrive at a Chamber Merchant location where the board will cook breakfast on the side walk (Paul will provide a portable griddle grill for preparing omlets, orange juice and coffee) and inside (the “getting to know you better” fellowship exercises will be lead by Jim Kale). This monthly “Monday Morning Breakfast Mixer” will be held the last Monday of each month at 8 a.m.. Plenty of notice will be in the weekly newsletter emails. According to Jim Kale, “the whole idea of this project is help our local merchants get to know each other better and to become better supporters of each other…….and to have fun!”
Our upcoming Wedding Expo is set for March 12th at the JI Building which is co-sponsoring the Expo with the Marion County Chamber. Some of our restaurants might be interested in having a booth to promote having rehearsal dinners at their facility. Anyone interested, please contact the Chamber –
903-665-2672 or email us at info@marioncountychamber.org
The Chamber and the Tourism Board will continue to work together on certain projects that will benefit everyone. For example, the co-sponsored Balloon Glow held this past August is set for the weekend of June 6th during the same weekend as the corvette show. We are currently working in committee, formulating plans to print an area map that would benefit all the tourists coming to our area. We are hopeful of having that new fold out map ready for distribution to our merchants to hand out this first quarter. We hear the question over and over……..”Do you have a detailed map?”
In the meantime, Mardi Gras is just around the corner and we hope to see you out on the streets of Jefferson. Say hello to our Ambassadors who will be busy working downtown.
Along with this article is our new “push card” tri-fold brochure with information about our membership categories. Come join us for the ride as the Chamber is aiming to please and better serve our community here in Marion County.