Your Chamber, Your Resource: Grow, Advocate, Market, Learn

What does the Chamber do? When a group of us tried to pare the answer down to a reasonable size, eliminate detail, and find the kernel at the core of our work we came up with four words: advocate, market, grow and learn.

The Chamber advocates for our members with our elected representatives, with local, state and national governments, and with planning boards and sewer commissions. We help businesses and organizations market their services and products to each other and to the world. The Chamber’s website and membership directory reach tens of thousands of potential clients and customers every year. Chamber members utilize the services of the Chamber to help grow their organizations. They meet other entrepreneurs and service providers at networking events and create opportunities to do business with each other. And through workshops, webinars and one-on-one business counseling they learn to do all of these activities better.

One of the most important ways the Chamber can advocate for our community in 2010 is to encourage everyone to participate in the Census. You’ll be hearing more about the Census over the next few months and materials will begin showing up in your mailbox soon. We will be asking you to let your employees know about the Census and the importance of being counted. The funding for many federal programs is tied to population statistics and without an accurate count our county could lose needed dollars.

The Chamber is partnering with the Census to help get this message out and we have received several thousand pedometers with the slogan “The Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce Wants YOU to be Counted U.S. Census 2010.” We’ll be distributing these at events in January and February. It’s a great way to get healthy by counting your steps and to help our county continue to have a healthy population count!

JANUARY 2010 MEMBERS IN THE NEWS

Local Habitat to Build in Village of Dryden!

Next Tompkins County Building Site Announced, Partner Family for next Habitat home given wonderful news before Christmas!

The Habitat for Humanity of Tompkins and Cortland Counties (TCHFH) Board of Directors unanimously approved the purchase of 6 Wellsley Drive in the Village of Dryden. This lot will be used for the next Tompkins County Habitat Build, starting next spring.

“We are thrilled to be building in Tompkins County again next year,” says executive director Christy Voytko, “Dryden will be a great location for volunteers from both Tompkins and Cortland Counties to come out and help build a home for a family in need of a simple, decent, and affordable home.” For more info, please call (607)898-4148.
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Coughlin & Gerhart, L.L.P. is pleased to announce that Robert H. McKertich has joined the firm to practice in the areas of Environmental Law, Labor and Employment and Municipal Law.

A graduate of Northeastern University School of Law, Mr. McKertich has practiced law in the Boston, MA area since 2003 in courtroom litigation and he is experienced in practicing before federal, state and local administrative agencies.
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Community Foundation Board Elects Leadership for its 10th Anniversary Year
The Community Foundation of Tompkins County has elected its leadership team for 2010, the local public charity’s tenth anniversary year. Local attorney Mariette Geldenhuys will be the Board Chairperson following 2009 Chair, Tommy Bruce, and Cornell Vice President for University Communications. Mickie Sanders-Jauquet, a Community Foundation donor advisor, active in education and local government and current chair of the Grants Committee, will serve as Vice Chair. Tompkins County Finance Director David Squires succeeds long time Treasurer Joanne James of Newfield Central Schools. Attorney Kim Rothman of Miller Mayer, LLP completes the leadership team as board Secretary.

The Blue Stone – Come On In!

Having been open for 4 years now, Doug and Nancy Gruen, the owners of the Blue Stone Bar Grill & Lounge at 110 North Aurora Street, have a question and a suggestion: "Why haven't you been in here yet?,” and "Get in here!"

Nancy says, "There's something for everyone here," and she points out that the chef-owned eatery (Doug is trained at the Culinary Institute of America) offers "elegant comfort food, great cocktails and is a great meeting spot for dinner."

When you come to Blue Stone, tell your server that you would like to have the "Dinner and a Movie" package. After dinner, you will be given a ticket good for one admission to Cinemapolis on the Commons, and the package is just $21.95.

Blue Stone is pleased to be connected to the Tompkins County Chamber of Commerce, and would like to offer all Chamber members 25% off their dinner entrees for the month of January! (The Chamber's resident vegetarian always orders Blue Stone's Veggie Burger, and deems it quite scrumptious.) January will also be a special month because a Wine Dinner will be held there on Wednesday January 20, and will feature, starting at 6 pm, a Six-course meal with six different wines (presented by one of the owners of Lamoreaux Landing Winery).


607.272.2371
www.bluestoneithaca.com

The Chamber Welcomes Snug Planet!

Snug Planet is a locally-owned home performance consulting and contracting company based in downtown Ithaca. The Snug Planet team is a small, highly trained group of home performance professionals. Our mission is to serve the community and protect the environment by improving the comfort and efficiency of buildings. We focus on customer satisfaction and keeping our staff trained, certified and educated on the latest in home performance. We are accredited by the Building Performance Institute and we are Energy Star-certified, so customers can depend on us to deliver quality work.

Snug Planet wants people to be comfortable in their buildings. We take an integrated approach to assessing and improving each building’s energy performance in order to deliver increased comfort and energy savings. We focus on heating, cooling, insulation, healthy and safety and moisture issues. Home energy audits include a site visit by a BPI-certified analyst, state-of-the-art diagnostic analysis, health & safety inspection, comprehensive written report, and targeted recommendations for increased comfort and energy savings. Our team installs a variety of products to fit customers' specific needs, including high-efficiency heating and hot water systems, renewable systems, insulation, new doors and windows, interior & exterior storm windows & doors, vapor barriers, crawlspace improvements, and other custom work.

Snug Planet is a Living Wage Employer certified by the Tompkins County Workers' Center, and we provide on-going training, health insurance and retirement benefits to our employees. As a Tompkins County certified Rebusiness Partner, Snug Planet is committed to minimizing business and construction waste. We are also members of the Ithaca Green Building Alliance, and the newly formed Sustainable Enterprise & Entrepreneurs network (SEEN).

At Snug Planet we care about our people and the earth, and we take pride in delivering environmentally-sound solutions to building performance problems in our community.


(607) 277-7684
www.snugplanet.com

Sandler Offers World Class Sales and Management Training

Sandler is a world leader in innovative sales and sales management training. We teach a distinctive, non-traditional selling system and highly effective sales training methodology, which has helped salespeople and sales managers take charge of the process.

Our training is designed to create lasting “performance improvement” rather than the motivational “quick fix” typical of many seminar-based training programs. To help you accomplish your goals, Sandler provides reinforcement training, a system that combines quality materials along with access to ongoing training workshops and individual coaching sessions. Through our Syracuse and Elmira training centers, we provide continuing face-to-face support and reinforcement of the world’s most successful selling system.

At Sandler, we understand that business success is directly related to the effectiveness of upper- and mid-level managers within an organization. Sandler’s management solutions help managers at all levels become more effective communicators, better mentors and coaches, and competent managers of change.

Entrepreneur Magazine has ranked Sandler as the No.1 training company eight times since 1994, including 2005-2007 and again in 2010.
“Find the Power in Reinforcement”


315-234-8153
www.peakpm.sandler.co