Monthly Archives: May 2010

Getting Students Excited About the Real World

If I could boil down the mission of The Chamber’s Franklin Initiative into one sentence, I would say it’s about providing real-world experiences that get young people excited about their future.

Our Franklin Initiative volunteers make this happen.  What better organization to provide real-world career learning than a Chamber of Commerce?  With connections to hundreds of businesses and thousands of people representing virtually every possible career field, The Chamber is uniquely positioned to play this important role.

This was a great year for FI.  Reality Stores, career fairs, company tours, employment fair, classroom speakers, service learning, mock interviews, WorkKeys testing – all these activities use the magic of real world experiences to spark interest in preparing for life as a working adult. Continue reading →

Utilizing The Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce Website

Next week I will enter my fifth month of working for The Greater Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. In my short time we have made great strides improving the look, content and capability of our website. However, all that progress means nothing if our visitors and users don’t know what we have to offer. Whether you’re a Chamber member, resident of Bloomington, or visitor from out of town, The Chamber website can help you with many of your needs.

  • Business Directory- The Chamber sends out a print business directory once a year, but for a real-time directory, our website is the place to go. When you visit our site you can click one of the various links on the front page to take you to the directory, or search it directly with the Google Site Search located in the upper right hand corner. If you decide to go to the directory page you can search by organization name, category, or choose from a list of all of the categories.
  • Coupons- The Chamber website features an excellent coupon section. There is both a public and members only section featuring coupons that can be used for discount on great products such as a visit to Beams Health and Wellness Spa or Zumba classes at BloomZum Dance Studio. You can download the coupons by following this link, or visiting the Chamber Website and clicking coupons on the right side. For Chamber Members, you can also post coupons to your business. All you have to do is go into the members only section and click add coupon, or call or e-mail us here at the chamber with the information and we can post it for you.
  • Job/Internship Board- Another seldom used, but excellent resource is our job/internship board. Under the employment tab on The Chamber website, businesses can post open positions which anyone can see.  Just like the coupon section, businesses can either post the jobs themselves through the members only section, or they can contact us at The Chamber to do it for them. Many individuals looking for jobs view The Chamber’s site, and unlike other job posting services, ours is free.
  • Members Only Section- The final section I will detail is the Members Only section. As I explained earlier, this is a member’s portal to post coupons or jobs/internships. There are a lot of other capabilities through this section as well. You can sign up for events, update your profile information, and look at your referral report. A referral report is one of the most valuable tools for a Chamber member. It detail how many people have seen your companies listing in the directory, how many times it’s been clicked, and how many people have mapped the location. This is a great tool to use to make sure your maximizing your membership investment.

For more information, or help using any of The Chamber’s online features please e-mail me at drose@chamberbloomington.org. We’d also love for people to start using the comment section below, so if you have any ideas to improve our site and its functionality please post.

Monroe County Comprehensive Plan Returns

This Thursday, May 13th, the Monroe County Plan Commission will listen to public comment regarding the recently updated Comprehensive Plan draft from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. at the Monroe County Courthouse.

For the better part of this year, the Plan Commission has been reviewing and discussing public comments made on the initial draft as well as offering their own edits and ideas for how to address subjects such as the subdivision of rural property – one of the more contentious issues of the plan.

A new 182-page version of the document (not a red-lined version of the first draft) was made available to the public in late April, and a public open house was held May 5th to view and informally discuss the final draft. Continue reading →

Five Ways to Instantly Polish Your Stage Presence!

Everyone takes the stage sooner or later, whether to accept an award, make a presentation, lead a workshop, or speak at the microphone at a government meeting.  What can you do to look like a pro when it’s your turn?

Last month I attended more events and presentations than usual, including:

  • Four student presentations for the BHS North Senior Project Night
  • Bill Polian at a fundraiser/luncheon for the Boys & Girls Club
  • The MCCS Foundation fundraising kickoff event
  • SCIHRA’s April meeting
  • The SPEA Service Corps end-of-year reception
  • Tom Roman speaking to graduation coaches
  • My own presentation at the Dropout Prevention Summit and to the American Legion

That’s a wide range of public speaking talent.  Although many speakers were polished, each event included at least one instance of an easily preventable audience distraction during transition points between speakers.  I’m not talking about content, and my purpose here is not about how to write and deliver a compelling speech.  Rather, there are some little things that everyone can do to immediately improve their stage presence during transition: Continue reading →