I’ve received a handful of complimentary notes from loyal readers about last week’s column, “Why We Need Your Support,” referring to the value of chamber membership. I can’t tell you how invigorating it is when someone reaches out to say they enjoyed a piece I’ve written. It makes my whole week.

This week, I want to dive into the programs our chamber runs, for two reasons. First, I want you to get a full idea of all the ways our member businesses can engage with the chamber. Secondly, very few of our events are members-only as our philosophy is, “What better way can we show you the value of chamber membership than to let you experience some of it.”

Let’s lead off with some of the networking programs we’re most known for, with our most visible one being Chamber After Hours. Think about Chamber After Hours as a monthly open house at a different member business, and we invite the entire membership to attend. For the host, this is also a great time to invite your favorite clients to have a drink at your place and celebrate your business. For business leaders looking to grow their network these events routinely pull 50-85 attendees or more. Our next Chamber After Hours is Thursday, April 14 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Darling’s Brunswick Ford.

There is no cost to attend any of our networking events, including Chamber After Hours. The only requirement for attending is to have a business card for the door prize raffle (which also lets us know that you’re a businessperson in the region). If you are a non-member, or a new member, there is also an opportunity to introduce yourself to everyone during the announcements, which occur about halfway through the event.

Another popular networking event is our 12 @ 12, which is our free lunch networking series where 12 business leaders break bread for 90 minutes at noon, so 12 at 12. It’s pretty simple. Everyone gets five minutes to talk about their business while we eat lunch together. Honestly, how much better do you feel you know someone after you’ve shared a meal with them? Our next 12 @ 12 won’t be until May as we’re transitioning from online, to in-person but we should have the date and location soon.

Only chamber members may host the Chamber After Hours and the 12 @ 12 but again any business leader can attend. There’s a hosting fee for Chamber After Hours, but the 12 @ 12 hosting fee is only to provide lunch for the 11 other attendees and yourself. Chamber After Hours is looking for hosts from July through December (though September is booked), while we are in the process of booking hosts for all 12 @ 12s from May through December.

Finally, our newest networking event is our trail walks which Chamber Coordinator Claire Papell does twice per month on Friday afternoons. Up to a dozen people are welcome to join Claire at the trailhead of one of the numerous trails in the region to go for a walk while catching up on chamber news and business updates. The trail walk registrations, 12 @ 12 registrations and Chamber After Hours reminders (and RSVPs) can be found in the chamber’s weekly Friday e-newsletter (which anyone can sign up for) or on our website.

There are several other programs our chamber runs too, including WILL Power events (our women’s group), ribbon cuttings, member business surveys, Meet the Candidate events, the online Community Event Calendar, Midcoast Edge events (our young professionals group), the Eat Play Stay chamber guide, Members Helping Members (our workshop series), Chamber Presents… (our speaker series) and more. But I want to focus the rest of this column on our newest, and perhaps most essential new program, Chamber Works 2030.

Chamber Works 2030, is the Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber’s decades-long commitment to innovative and tangible workforce programming to better connect the schools, businesses and municipalities. This cross-community collaboration was built by three dozen business leaders helping our team select six new workforce programs to work on in 2022 from a list of nearly 30 potential programs.

We announced the programs at our March 11 Chamber Awards Night and are cultivating the work teams to finalize program details or building the work plans for that specific workforce team. Please know that two of the programs are 80-90% conceptualized, while the other four will take a bit longer to develop, but all of them are expected to show tangible results in 2022.

The first two programs focus on career pathways and connecting potential employees to the careers available in our region. The first program is Guidance Counselor Bus Tours, which in concept is getting representatives from the local school districts, and Region 10, to hop on buses and get special tours of local businesses. At the business, the attendees will get to see the facility and learn which careers are available and what the educational requirements are for the different positions.

The second program is One-Minute Job Posting videos. Essentially, what do you need to know to apply for a job? And if candidates are not logging on to Indeed.com, or the online Maine Job Link, or looking in the newspapers. How do they know about your job? Conversely, people watch 60-second videos every single day on social media. So let’s line up 30 videos from 30 businesses on one channel and encourage potential employees, to sit back and get pitched on jobs.

Our other four Chamber Works 2030 programs require a much deeper explanation, and I will follow up with those details in next week’s column. However, I hope you learned a little bit more about what we do for this region through our chamber work. All of these programs are funded by business membership and program sponsorships, meaning we couldn’t do this without the support of many of you- and for that our team is incredibly grateful. Thank you.

Cory King is the executive director of the Bath-Brunswick Regional Chamber.

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