Scottsville-Allen County Chamber of Commerce Closes Out The Year with Joyful Noise
These wouldn’t be the only Christmas carolers that would make an appearance at the monthly Scottsville-Allen County Chamber of Commerce breakfast.
By Chris Cole,
Staff Writer
The Scottsville-Allen County Chamber of Commerce has, for the past couple of years, hosted monthly meetings as a way to connect with the businesses and organizations that are Chamber members. There’s been a dual purpose as well – it’s also for business and organizations to connect with each other. They’re informal but also informational.
The Chamber also makes them fun. On Thursday, Dec. 19, with it being the Christmas and New Year season, local children’s choir “Joyful Noise” paid the Chamber members a visit and sang three songs. They were “Do You Know Blitzen?”, “Feliz Navidad” and “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree.”
If the kids were nervous to sing in front of a room full of grown-ups they certainly didn’t show it. Some of them looked grateful to spend an hour away from school even with Christmas break coming up in a couple days.
While it isn’t every month there’s a choir to provide some singing, it doesn’t mean that the Chamber members don’t have some fun. There are times when an auction might take place. There’s usually door prizes to be given away. These gatherings are anything but mundane.
In an interview done earlier this year, Susan Carter, Director of the Scottsville-Allen County Chamber of Commerce, stated, “As a community we work together and as a community we are all focused on one thing. That’s improving the quality of life in Scottsville and Allen County.”
Also in that interview, she stated that it was important for the Chamber of Commerce and for her to be seen in less formal settings and foster an environment of cooperation. The monthly breakfast (and sometimes lunch) meetings have done that.
Joyful Noise, the children’s choir, made an appearance at the Chamber breakfast and sang “Do You Know Blitzen?”, “Feliz Navidad” and “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”
The meetings themselves have grown over the last couple years. There’s been a few months when additional tables and chairs have had to be set up to accommodate everyone in the big meeting space of The Washington Center. This has been a good problem to have though.
One element of the monthly meetings that’s always been given plenty of space is for Chamber members to say what they have coming up that the community might be interested in.
In that interview referenced earlier, Carter went onto say, “We have businesses that feel this is important to our community. One of the things that changed a bit when I came onboard was it was decided that the Chamber was here to promote Chamber members.”
As the calendar closes on 2024, Carter stated that she was pleased with how well the year went. She also encouraged current Chamber members to potentially recruit new members by reminding everyone that a Chamber member is welcome to invite those who aren’t yet members to attend one of the breakfasts and see for themselves what they’re all about.
Unless otherwise stated, the Chamber of Commerce hosts these breakfasts (and sometimes lunches) on the third Thursday of each month, 7:30 a.m. at the Washington Center. There’s almost always a sponsor for each meeting who will then give a presentation of their business or organization to the other Chamber members.
