The following are excerpts from my speech to the Chamber membership at our October, 2009 Eye Opener Breakfast and Annual Meeting:

Before I share with you the highlights of our last fiscal year and plans for next year, let me just say that it is my great honor and privilege to serve as your President and CEO.  I have the best job in Battle Creek.

I want to start out by thanking our members, our Board, our volunteers and our staff; all of YOU are responsible for our success.

We have focused on driving value to the membership in four key areas: membership, business advocacy, networking, and workforce development/ quality of life.  As the largest business advocacy organization in Calhoun County, we had another GREAT year!

We received our reaccreditation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with five stars.   This is the highest honor which can be bestowed on a local Chamber, ranking us with just a handful of Chambers nationally, recognizing all of our program and procedures.

We successfully established the Battle Creek Area Leadership Challenge, graduating 19 students in our first class and enrolling 25 in our second.  We continued great success with the Battle Creek Self Employment Program, now with 138 graduates who have created and improved 41 local businesses.

We added many new members and volunteers, and awarded over $79,000 in Accident Fund rebates to Chamber members.  We provided 10 member to member discounts to help our members’ bottom lines, 28 networking events, 100 photo opportunities and ribbon cuttings, and cost effective marketing for our members on our website and in the Insight. 

We re-designed and improved our communications with our members through our new Insight and new website.

We took strong pro-business positions on 13 pieces of legislation and successfully supported pro business candidates for positions at all levels of govt.

We worked hard on a large number of high profile advocacy initiatives on behalf of the membership.
We weighed in  at all levels of government, to oppose the card check legislation,  on GO 21 to improve freight rail transportation and other transportation funding,   on the downtown transformation proposal and local tax abatements for our members,  tax legislation for aircraft maintenance, and on the part time legislature proposal.

We were appointed to the Michigan Chamber Professionals policy group and the Michigan Economic Developers Association Legislative Affairs Committee, and joined a statewide coalition advocating for Medicaid reforms.

We’ll continue progress on all of these initiatives into the future.

We know this has been and continues to be a challenging time for many of our members.  This is why we have strategically re-focused on our mission, and made significant investments in our advocacy and communications vehicles.  It is all about driving value to our members.  That is why we are here as your Chamber: to build and strengthen business resources to help our members and your bottom lines. 

And, if times are tough- all the more reason to be involved in the Chamber, to help your business grow and remain strong in the Battle Creek area. The key word here is INVOLVED—in the Eye Opener Breakfasts, the monthly business expos, the mixers, committees, and on our website and in the Insight.  Take advantage of our member discounts to cut your costs of doing business.  I urge everyone to work together with your Chamber and each other.
 
On behalf of our staff and our Board of Directors, I thank all of our members for your support.  We have a bright future ahead and another great year coming up.