Your Chehalem Valley Chamber of Commerce is working to develop a Spotlight video series set to highlight organizations and their efforts around our region. The process is moving forward and our team now includes the volunteer efforts of storyboard/script consultant Phil Morton, who is also an employee of the Springfield Chamber of Commerce. Phil is working with our videographer, Brandon Porter, to film and produce our first two of twelve videos on A-dec and Newberg Dundee Police Department. Our schedule will attempt to align with recent survey results of Newberg High School students, where they were asked to prioritize which career opportunities they were most interested in learning about. Engineering, law enforcement, mechanics, electrical, manufacturing and agriscience were the top interests.
On November 4th, CVCC was recognized by Mayor Rogers at City Council for our partnership in the Small Business Saturday Proclamation. On November 18th, the City of Newberg approved our Q1 Visitor Center report, with Councilors noting that they liked the updated report format describing the purposes, duration and services provided with each visitor engagement.
We continue to build relationships with our Latino professional community through our involvement with the second cohort for Table for 12, an intercultural dinner exchange sponsored by OCF and the Latino Partnership Program. We also participated in a recent planning session for the upcoming 2020 delegation to our sister city, Poysdorf, Austria.
“Newberg Perk,” presented with First Federal and Headwater Consulting, is being renewed through June 2020. Our focus is shifting to story-telling, and each session will feature a different local business leader sharing, “How I Built This.” Our speakers will also invite one of their strategic business partners to co-present (a mentor, accountant, lawyer, etc). Our next event is Wednesday, Jan 15th, 7:30-8:30.
As a new board member for the Newberg Historical Society, Josh Duder recently presented a History of Chambers of Commerce, including ours, during their November meeting. All Newberg Historical Society presentations are open to the public. Josh will repeat this program at Newberg Noon Rotary Club, 12:00-1:00 on Wednesday, January 15th.
We supported a testimonial session to the OTC for Bypass funding, including collecting letters of support from CVCC, Visit Newberg, NDC and DCI, led by our lobbying partner, Summit Strategies. Several other companies independently participated as well, including A-dec and Austin Industries.
Patty and Shannon recently attended St. Cousair’s Open House to support one of our newest members. Shannon and Josh attended the McMinnville Area Chamber of Commerce Annual Awards Night and enjoyed an evening supporting our West-county businesses. Then Shannon travelled to Salem to learn about upcoming opportunities with the SBDC, Worksource Oregon, and Mid-Valley Literacy Center. Mike White and OEN hosted their first Pub Talk with CVCC, MEDP and SEDCOR at Mac Market.
Leslie Zook is moving along nicely with our 2020 Chamber Awards Banquet. She has a full committee with returning and new members. Nomination applications are available and the event is scheduled for Friday, February 28th at the Cultural Center.
In December, Shannon will proudly represent the Chamber of Commerce and the interests of Newberg while attending the Association of Career & Technical Education’s annual conference in Anaheim, California, with several Newberg School District employees, courtesy of NSD and The Austin Family Foundation. The focus will be on improving our abilities to negotiate strong professional partnerships for CTE and workforce development for our area students.