Shires Strong Event Highlights and Celebrates Businesses in Southwestern Vermont
The Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce on January 27, 2021 (credit: Southwestern Vermont Chamber)
Vermont Business Magazine After a year that challenged even the best business owners and institutions throughout Vermont, the Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce hosted a night of celebration.
Titled “Shires Strong,” the Chamber’s annual membership meeting, promoted as the biggest night for businesses in the region, took place digitally on Wednesday January 27, 2021.
The digital event held on Zoom and co-produced by Catamount Access Television ran a little over an hour and focused on celebrating businesses and individuals that made an impact on the region in 2020. The membership meeting, which happens every year in January to bring all the chamber members together, also introduced a 2021 budget for the organization which the membership voted on and passed.
The digital meeting provided the opportunity to say thank you to retiring board members including Sylvia Pike, Susan Strano and Jonah Spivak. While some exited, others entered. The Chamber welcomed new directors to the board Erica Lawrence-Dearstyne of Union Underground in Manchester and Ron Levene of The Barn at Center Hill also located in Manchester.
The Chamber welcomed a new slate of officers including Shannon McLenithan of The Bank of Bennington as the Second Vice President, replacing Michael McKenna and William Deveneau of William C. Deveneau, Esq. PLC as Treasurer, replacing Tom Dailey who had served as Treasurer for the better part of a decade. Brian Maggiotto of The Inn at Manchester and Matt Willey of Ramuntos, The Avocado Pit and The Buckstop returned as President and First Vice President of the board respectively. Art Whitman and Brenda Jones also returned as Ex Officio executive committee members.
A digital ballot was sent out to Chamber members in November and votes were collected to decide on new board directors and the slate of officers.
The meeting kicked off at 5:30pm with a musical performance presented by Old Mill Road Recording Studio and composer and performer Benjamin Lerner. Following the musical opening, both Heritage Family Credit Union and TPW Real Estate, Presenting Sponsors of the event, welcomed participants in a recorded video.
The meeting was fast paced with something new every couple of minutes including “digital door prizes” donated by members, music, business elements, and a new set of annual awards.
A snowy Bennington downtown with businesses displaying an "Open" flag (credit: Lorianna Weathers Photography & Southwestern Vermont Chamber)
Matt Harrington, now entering his fifth year as Executive Director of the Chamber, explained the change in awards, “As we transitioned from the Bennington Chamber to the Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce last year, we knew we needed to change up the traditional awards we have handed out to better represent the full region. This decision was made by staff and board members alike. Although the previous awards hold a special place in our heart, we think these new awards represent the mission and vision of this chamber and our new direction!”
The new awards included Member of the Year, New Member of the Year, Volunteer of the Year, Regional Visionary, two Young Professional of the Year awards and a Lifetime Achievement award.
Unlike previous years, award recipients this year provided pre-recorded acceptance videos that were played throughout the event.
The 2021 recipients included:
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Member of the Year: Nancy Koziol of couch + cork located in Bennington
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New Member of the Year: Kevin and Sue Harter of Rockwell’s Retreat located in Arlington
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Volunteer of the Year: Susan Strano
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Regional Visionary: Jonah Spivak
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Young Professional of the Year in a Business: Kelly Clarke of Centerline Architects
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Young Professional of the Year in a Nonprofit: Michael Cutler of CAT-TV
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Lifetime Achievement: Art Whitman of A&K Agriservices, former founder of Whitman’s Feed Store and director on the Chamber board.
Harrington in his address to members and the board highlighted the wins the Chamber had despite the COVID Pandemic. In 2020, the chamber added 39 new members and saw 373 members renew. “That is huge in a year that saw financial stress and survival mode for many of our members. They still saw value in this chamber and we so appreciate their resilience and commitment.” adds Harrington.
Throughout the year, the regional Chamber focused on COVID Pandemic briefs, constant communication emails to members, a business resource web page, Take Out Week to support local restaurants, a partnership between the hospital and restaurants to deliver donated meals to frontline workers, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) packs for members operating a business. The chamber fielded a flurry of labor and workforce questions daily, as well as travel restriction questions. The chamber and board directors played an active and critical role in advocacy efforts to connect struggling businesses with available funds, as well as voicing concerns and challenges at many legislative committee hearings. One of the most popular efforts was in partnership with Southwestern Vermont Medical Center and CAT-TV for their ongoing digital “telecasts” that updated residents in Bennington County on COVID-19 efforts and vaccine distribution. The chamber reports that their “telecast” series had 15 live and recorded telecasts throughout the year which included the hospital and other partners.
“There are a lot of silver linings and ‘ah has’ we found this past year,” Harrington said. “We found the pivot to a digital platform like Zoom and Facebook and the massive adoption of that by almost all businesses allowed us to cut costs and communicate at a heightened, much-needed level. We made key decisions earlier in the year when COVID first hit - producing less travel guides, rearranging staff, closing the chamber to the public, managing costs - that I think were important and helped us survive. And yet, we still did a Garlic event, Winter Homebrew, created a Golf Classic tournament and utilized Restart Grants of $50,000 collectively to leverage our great Southern Vermont tourism assets. Every year I think I say how proud I am of the staff and board, but this year is especially sobering and meaningful. It is out of challenges that I think we added the most to our membership this year and we should be proud about that.”
Recently, the chamber was awarded five Restart Marketing Grants through the Agency of Commerce and Community Development.
One of the grants focused on a series of four tourism videos focused on lodging, dining, culture and retail. Harrington reported that the two videos that are currently live have already generated 440,000 impressions and over 700 clicks.
Another grant, through the Chamber’s DMO committee, created a “Shires Shopper” program which gave $10 to every shopper who spent over $100 at participating stores before the holiday shopping season. Harrington reported that the total amount of consumer spending in the local shops in the three weeks of the campaign was somewhere north of $40,000.
The chamber also supported a “Digital Holiday Marketplace” with New England Newspapers and the Bennington Banner which put over 50 local mom-and-pop shops on an e-commerce platform during the holiday season. That platform saw over 140,000 impressions over four weeks, encouraging web visitors to shop at the participating local stores.
The popular “Garlic Town, USA” event held in downtown Bennington in September was also supported by Restart Marketing funds and Harrington reports that the downtown saw over 4,000 people that weekend and the event stimulated a lot of spending in downtown businesses especially with local businesses participating in Sidewalk Sales.
Finally, the SOAR committee of the Chamber focused a grant on creating more recreational collateral including social media outreach which has already generated 400,000 impressions on Facebook and Instagram and over 350 clicks, new recreational photography, a recreational video, and other marketing collateral. The evening was the first time Harrington and the Chamber shared the results of these campaigns as they were recently reported to the state.
The night concluded as Harrington and Maggiotto thanked the board, committees, staff and the membership. Lerner and Old Mill Road Recording Studio returned to close out the night and event with another musical performance.
“Evolved is exactly how I would describe the state of our Chamber today,” said Maggiotto. “After relying on each other for ten months, the idea of stronger together has a whole new meaning and has proven to be the glue that has held our economy together through the darkest days thus far.”
Sponsors for the night included Presenting Sponsor Family Heritage Credit Union and TPW Real Estate, Business Level Sponsors Power Guru and VNA & Hospice of the Southwest Region, Friend of the Chamber Sponsor Southwest Tech, Media Level Sponsors The Bennington Banner and Catamount Access Television, and Musical Sponsor Old Mill Road Recording Studio.
Source: Southwestern Vermont Chamber of Commerce. Bennington. 1.28.2021