A couple days ago in our virtual staff meeting, Chamber staff spent a little time at the end of the meeting catching up with each other. Meetings over Zoom and WebEx can accomplish a lot but we all know there’s nothing like meeting in person. Although, I will say that I’ve learned more about many people working virtually as you see inside their homes, meet their kids and wave to the family pets.

Our staff discussion centered around the Chamber’s role in this time of uncertainty. While the Chamber is known for its events and programs which take on a very public and visible role, events are a product of the Chamber’s mission of advocating for business.

Some of our events, like Unity in the Community, bring our business members and non profits face to face with the community. Unity lets the public know in a fun way that business is important to our community and way of life. Other Chamber events are smaller and more geared to business-to-business interaction. All Chamber events advocate for business, whether it be from the business community to the public or by giving space for members to build their business amongst their peers.

In this time of economic and health challenges, I reminded our staff that the mission of the Chamber hasn’t changed – and it’s not going to. We’re simply advocating in a different way.  The daily work of staff and volunteers looks very different than it did a couple weeks ago. If you haven’t already been doing so, follow the Chamber on social media and in our Enews. We are giving daily, and in some cases hourly, updates on news and resources for businesses. Many of our members have questions and the Chamber has a wide variety of partners to get those questions answered for you.

Speaking of partnerships, that’s another thing that hasn’t changed. Over the last few years the Chamber has strengthened and established new partnerships. In this time, it is becoming even more apparent how helpful and necessary these are. Our Chamber team is small but we partner with the City of Longmont, our Advance Longmont Economic Partners, Chambers across our region through the Northwest Chamber Alliance, the Colorado and Denver Metro Chambers and more organizations throughout our community, state and country. This gives us access to information that will help you and your business weather this storm.

The Chamber’s mission is to advocate for business.  Now more than ever, that mission is important. The immediate goal your Chamber Board and staff have right now is to aid the business community through this time so when the pandemic is over, the Longmont business community can take on its role of leading us back to economic vitality and prosperity for all.