Now for our community connection.
And Judy Williams with this and she is with the Greater Bartlesville Area Chamber of Commerce. And my goodness sakes, we've had a busy month. We got another busy went ahead. Let's just remind folks that the Chamber is busy, but they're working for you.
We are, we are.
It's part of our vision statement, which I can't remember exactly how it is, but to provide an atmosphere and a platform for business success and development.
We want businesses to succeed.
I told somebody, you know how you don't like to be taken advantage of Tony.
You don't want people, but we do.
We want you to take advantage of all the things that we offer. So come and take advantage of the chamber benefits. They're available to.
You, and there are plenty of benefits. You know, when you belong, you're a part of something greater, and you find yourself working with each other and the common goal.
Yes, that is so true.
And what I have figured out is that when a business leader recognizes that that they're part of something greater, they're Chamber members forever. We want it to work for them. We want because people will say, well, what's in it for me? And there is so much that's in it for you, but the biggest thing that's in it for you is to be a part of something bigger. And once they recognize that, they're chamber members forever because they
want to be. They want Bartlesville and the surrounding area and Dewey and Nowada and Wan and lin Upon and all those places.
We want them all to be successful.
Now we've got a business after hours coming up.
Real quick, coming up real quick, a week from tomorrow is our business after hours. The business after hours is always the first Thursday of each month, and it's always at four o'clock, four to five thirty usually, And this next one will be at Career Employment. Career Employment is located at twenty three fifty southeast No Water Place, and so so that is going to be fun thing. Business after hours always has plenty of food and beverages and door prizes, but a great opportunity to meet and greet
other business leaders in the community. So business after hours is always wonderful. But that's August the seventh. But then August the nineteenth is a busy day. That morning, at eight o'clock at the chamber office is pastries and perks.
I hear, that's really a sweet way to start the day.
Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, and well. And the pastries are provided by the eatery. Any saltsman at the eatery. It doesn't get a whole lot better than that, I'll tell you what.
Oh and she always.
Gives us some great pastries to begin our perks. And then Sherry gives an it's about an hour long slide presentation, and she talks about all the perks of chamber membership, the tangibles and the intangible perks. There's some things that go on behind the scenes at the state level, you know at the capitol, and you know within the county and for businesses that that Sherry can talk about and share and tell you what we do, what she does, what the chamber does, not just this chamber, but the
chambers in Oklahoma do behind the scenes. And then the afternoon, actually it's later in the morning at eight at eleven thirty at Tri County Tech is the Economic Forecast Forum. This man Mark Snead is his name, and he as an economist and he is going to share with us some of the insights from the last year, from this last year and economically what has happened. But then he's also going to give some forecasts, not just for Bartlesville,
this is for Oklahoma and northeast Oklahoma. Oh, And he's going to talk about some of the economic indicators that impact business performance in the coming months. And so to just give us an idea of what needs to be tweaked, what we need to look forward to, maybe what we need to save, what we need to invest in, you know, all the things. He's the economist, he'll he'll tell us. But that's at eleven thirty on August the nineteenth at
Tri County Tech. It's twenty five dollars and includes lunch and it will be very good.
Oh, I wanted to.
Go back to Pastries and Perks. Oh, Pastries and Perks is a free event. We have so many free events at the Chamber that people can take advantage of. Business after Hours is a free event and it's meant to help businesses interact with other businesses, get ideas, meet people, make new customers, make new friends, and of course eat a lot.
And we do that.
One thing that comes from that is that some folks have heard of other you know business providers or managers or folks who may be, you know, the faceman of the company, but they've never met them, right, And then the a lot of times they find out that there's some commonalities and maybe there's an opportunity to partner, to maybe meet a challenge and to do great.
For oh absolutely, and to do great things for each other. That business B to B is such, it is so important and to put a face to the name. And then the other exciting thing that we've got, well, we've got a couple of other exciting things, a lot of other exciting things coming up. But Business Expo is coming up September, the seventh September, the fourth September, fourth, yeah, fourth, not yeah, And that will be at the Hilton Garden and it's in conjunction with Business after Hours that day.
But this is a grand opportunity to come and set up your display and showcase your business. We will have a lot of other business people there and it's seventy five dollars to get your space and it's from four to six that evening that afternoon, but you need to come a little early and set up your display and get it all ready to go and and it's going to be a great time. We're getting close to selling
out already. So Kim Whitmore at the Chamber is the person you need to call at three nine eight three three six eight seven zero eight and talk to Kim and she will get your place reserved for you for business Expo. And you know this, it was great last year. It is going to be even greater this year. It really is. We've got more people signed up and it's going to be fun and you will meet a lot of new people and have an opportunity to showcase what you do.
I'm always a great to you. It's always great to see things grow.
You know. I'm gonna kind of take you off the path here, okay, because usually when it gets to be like really hot like this, I start getting sherry about Christmas.
In the Bill.
I know, I know we're ready for Christmas.
We are getting ready for Christmas in the vill you know, we're start getting ready for Christmas in the Ville long about January fifteenth. It just it just it's no pun intended.
It snowballs on you, it really does.
It comes around and all of a sudden, there's so many, so many pieces of it, but you know what we've done it for. This will be our ninth year, and it is. It's easier, It's gotten easier every year. The one thing we really have to be careful about we don't have any control over it is how warm it gets in December sometimes, and it's like no, no, no, we don't want.
The ice to melt.
But Serve pros great about coming out and sucking the water off the rink. But yes, Christmas in the vill is coming. It will be Our kickoff night is November twenty ninth. It's a Saturday night, and and we will be open for five weeks.
You know, it's exciting.
I just love opening night. I really do the little train out there with the kids. Yeah sometimes we have fireworks, sometimes we don't, but we always have the tree and all the lights in the park.
Oh and the music and the hot chocolate and the kids laughing.
You were doing hot chocolate last year, by yes, I did.
All I saw was high passed out a lot of hot chocolate.
It was awesome and and it is is absolutely every year. I go out there and I just stand and listen and look at the lights and the and the tree and the hot chocolate and the skaters and the kids, and you hear the kids laughing, and it is like being in a Hallmark movie.
Crazy, awesome and all of it.
People.
Every year we get seemingly more and more people. You know, when I was kind of surprised. Even during bit we were packed.
Yeah, yeah, wonderful. Yeah.
Maria at visit Bartlesville did some ransom stats.
I don't know how she does it. She's remarkable, but I know she's crazy. She's awesome.
But we brought between twenty one and twenty three thousand people downtown Bartlesville. Now, not all of those people skated, but almost ten thousand of them did. And but but they were downtown. They they ate downtown, They walked around and saw the lights downtown.
They had we have the carriage rides.
They rode the carriage around downtown and downtown just and all of Bartlesville does this. But downtown is so incredible. They all put up lights. It's just it's just a whole event. And and so, boy, you did take me off track, didn't you. We really talked started talking about Christmas. I do want to talk about this real quick. September fifteenth. We're working really hard at make that the deadline for being having your ads in for the twenty twenty six Community UH Chamber guidebook.
That is a big, beautiful Yeah, it is.
A big beautiful book. I was going to bring it today and I left it out in the car. That was real smart. But but.
That is if you if you want to put anything in the book, you can. Again, We'll call Kim at nine one eight three three six eight seven zero eight pro Sorry Kim, but anyway.
But she won't be she'll be happy.
And it is just a it's it's a great book and it's just a wonderful time. And if we can get those things in by September fifteenth, boy, it makes it so much easier to send off and get ready for the printer and and have back and by our by the time we need to get these out to all of our members.
You know, this thing is such a good resource, and especially with so many people that we have coming in, with many of the new businesses that are coming in bringing employees. Yeah, this is a really good guide. If you've never been to Bartlesvilt, maybe you've seen it on the Google map or something like that and you're thinking, oh, I'm moving all the way from Pennsylvania to yeah out west. Yeah, well, well it is welcome home and it'll get you where
you need to go. It's very easy to navigate and on top of that, looks pretty good on the coffee table.
It does.
And then in the back of the book, we have all of our businesses listed by category. So now all of our members are listed in our member directory online all the time, but the book comes out once a year and our members can be in the back of
that book. So if you're not a chamber member, but you've always wondered about what one of the what some of the benefits are one of two of the great benefits are being listed where people can find you online and then also in our community in our chamber guidebook.
This works well for folks who've been here for maybe all their lives.
New businesses are popping up just like these.
It's all over the place, yep, which takes me back. That made me there was one thing about pastries and perks. Sorry, I keep going back to pastries and perk. Why not pastries? I know in the perks the pastries are really good, But pastries and perks is for It was designed for members that have been members for maybe a long long time and don't remember all of their benefits that are available. Kind of like me and you Tom, you get to where you don't remember everything, like I left the book
in the car. But it's for members that maybe have been a member just a short time but don't didn't get all the gist of their membership benefits. But what about those new people that aren't a member yet and they wonder what the benefits are? So pastries and perks is for everyone.
Wow, wonderful.
Now all you got to do is go to the website at Bartlesville dot com.
It's really easy to remember.
And I don't know who does your your stuff, but that you make it really easy to navigate and it's really kind of cool. We've got some video in there, and yeah, really just a nice, easy little way to kind of spend some time.
Yeah, Tresa does a great job of She did a year d a recap because you know, we're a fiscal year, and she did that and put it on our website, so you can kind of get an idea of all the things that we did throughout the course of the year.
And your face may be on some of it.
It might just be Yeah, Yeah, anything else we need to tell folks about.
I just I just one other thing that I didn't get to talk about September seventh. That's September seventh. We will start women in Business again good and that is always exciting.
And it is just a grand opportunity.
Sometimes we will have a guide that is really and he'll come in and come to women in Business with us, and that's great. We always love that. But we always have lunch at Hill Chris Country Club, and we like to offer maybe an opportunity for businesses, different women's businesses to set up a little booth as we go into the ballroom to eat, they can set up a little table there and kind of showcase what they're doing and
there's no charge for that. It's we can only do maybe two businesses at a time, but it is a great opportunity for them. But it's just also great opportunity to get together again, put a face to some of the names that we know.
And there again we have lunch.
And we have door prices and we always have a good guest speaker to give us great information about Sometimes it could be fashion, sometimes it can be business, it could be different things that women need to have help with business and so women in Business will start back up September seventh. We took the summer off.
That's a good idea because owners get pretty busy.
For a lot of time. It's hot.
It's hot. Set that right, Judy, Thank you for being.
With Thank you, Tom. It's always a pleasure.
Folks.
You've been watching it listening to our community connection. Brought to you by Wesley and Kitty College, Arnold Moore innee Camp Funeral Home, and also twelve Grass Motors