| Newsletter | May, 2003 |
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Nederland Area Chamber of Commerce P O Box 85, Nederland CO 80466 303-258-3936 www.nederlandchamber.org Member’s Corner
Welcome New Members
Sign Planting Workday On Saturday, June 14 we need a few volunteers to assist with laying out the garden landscaping around the “Welcome to Nederland” entrance sign on Highway 119. We will set rocks, fabric and dirt ready for Wild Bear Center for Nature Discovery class of youngsters to help plant smaller plants a week later. Tom Hendricks has volunteered to complete all maintenance of the sign, including power-washing and restaining woodwork, alter data on the sign, and install and additional piece of mining equipment to complete the hoist. Thank you, Tom! Please call Serene at 303-545-2126 to volunteer and to confirm the date/time. Serve on Your Board The Chamber is seeking a board member to represent our increased membership. If you would like to be considered for temporary appointment (elections are next February), please contact any Chamber Board Member or Teresa Warren at 303-258-7976. Summertime Fun Fair Booths This year’s Summertime Fun Fair promises to have at least 60 juried Fine Artists from six states. Booths are also available for members and local non-profit groups. This is a rare opportunity to display your goods or services in the great outdoors. The deadline to register for a booth is Monday, June 2. Registration forms are available at the Visitors Center, Off Her Rocker, or call Teresa Warren at 303-258-7976 to mail one to you. Summertime Fun Fair Chamber Booth Volunteers Your Chamber will host a booth at the Summertime Fun Fair to promote the area and sell tie-dye “Summertime Fun Fair” T-Shirts. We can only represent our businesses well at this booth if we have volunteers from our membership to man the booth for two hour shifts. The Fair hours are Saturday, June 28 from 10am to 6pm and Sunday, June 29 from 10am to 5pm. Volunteers are also needed to sell crawl tickets at the entrances to music venues on Saturday night. Please sign up to help for two hours on one of those days by calling Teresa at 303-258-7976 or Serene at 303-545-2126. Sponsorships of Summertime Fun Fair The Summertime Fun Fair is seeking six sponsorships at $250 to make the Fair a success. Sponsorship advertises your business name to all visitors and local families at the Fair that weekend. Your logo will be on the advertising posters and you may hang a banner on the stage. Please contact Teresa Warren at 303-258-7976 no later than June 2. Art Film Benefit for Wild Bear The sensual and poetic nature sculptures of Andy Goldsworthy are captured in the documentary Rivers and Tides, which follows one year of his improvisational process. A haunting musical score enhances our experience of this serene art. Join supporters of Wild Bear Center for Nature Discovery in this fundraising event at the Boulder Theatre on Friday, June 6. For only $10 (advance price) you will enjoy a catered cocktail party/silent auction (5:30pm), the movie (7:00pm), and a bluegrass party featuring the nationally acclaimed olt-time music of “Open Road” that follows at 9pm. If you have items or services you’d like to donate to the silent auction, you will gain great visibility at this Boulder venue and be helping our non-profit chamber member. Please call Jill Dreves for tickets or to make a donation: 303-258-0495 Cyberworld Updates Several of our members have requested that we distribute the newsletter to them only via email. Please let us know if you would like to be on an email-only distribution of the newsletter. We are also planning to post the newsletters on our website each month. Email serene@karplus.com with your thoughts on this and to sign up for no more mailbox clutter! Website Links New addition! As mentioned in last month’s newsletter, the more links to your website, the higher you appear on some search engine lists. Please consider adding a link to your website and asking your vendors to do so also, which guides visitors back to the Chamber website at www.nederlandchamber.org. We have a banner or button logo in the format your webmaster needs and would be happy to email it to you. Email serene@karplus.com or call 303-545-2126 and we will send it to you. The more we link to each other, the more we all win! Sugarloaf Assistance With great sympathy for our fellow residents on Sugarloaf Road during their ongoing pipeline construction project, we would like to offer them the relief of avoiding the hassles of getting to Boulder. Everything they need is available right here in Nederland. We propose an ad flyer that displays our businesses to remind them of the convenience and great service we can offer them. Please consider placing a 1/8th page ad on the flyer for a cost of $50. Deadline for the ad is June 13th. Contact Teresa Warren at 303-258-7976. Logo Shirts Available to Members New arrivals! Golf shirts and Denim shirts embroidered with the Chamber logo will be available for sale to our members at the low cost of $18 and $25. We are ordering a small supply for our Visitors Center Volunteers and other interested members. Please contact Serene 303-545-2126 to purchase one in time for the Summer season. Volunteer Appreciation Card Offers Thank you to the businesses which are showing their appreciation for our volunteers. Recently, the Sundance Cafe held a complimentary lunch honoring these dedicated folks. On our appreciation card, the following provided special offers: B&F Mountain Market, Double B-R Ranch, Horses R Us, Medicine Shield Trade Co., Off Her Rocker Antiques, Pioneer Inn, The Good Karma Garage, Wild Bear Center for Nature Discovery. Customer Service Seminar The attendees of the May 13th Customer Service Seminar gave it two thumbs up. Even the most seasoned service personnel were glad they had committed a mere hour and a half of their time for a refresher on the psychology of excellence in service. Represented were: restaurant, retail store, service business, the school system, and the Visitors Center. After reviewing the Four Gaps in Customer Service and the Ten Elements of Customer Service, the Rules of First Impressions, we discussed Service Quality, Customer Retention,Communication Difficulties, and the Art of Listening. The psychology of sales and service and how to respond to personality traits was a popular topic of the day. A few of the many ideas we received were:
Visitors Center The Visitors Center Volunteers held a meeting this month at which they traded ideas for referrals to businesses, improvements to our center and services, and set up outings for learning more about the area. It was an exciting and productive meeting. The Visitors Center hours are now seven days a week. Do you know anyone who is dynamic, friendly, and knowledgeable about the area who can donate time to assist this great group of people? Stop by the Visitors Center, both to show your appreciation to our dedicated volunteers and to keep them aware of your business so they will think of you first when referring our visitors! Don’t forget to drop off your brochures or flyers for display there! New Chamber Library If you have books or tapes that have inspired you that you would like to share with your fellow members, please consider donating them to our Chamber Member Lending Library. We’d love to keep a commentary list with your recommendations. We can include a recommended reading/viewing column in our newsletter, including websites you’d like to share. Let us know how you would like to see this work for you! Serene 303-545-2126. Teacher Appreciation Package The following letter expresses the sentiments of many teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week. Members who attended the May meeting or who have email were aware of a project that was created after the last newsletter with an urgent deadline. Thank you to the businesses who participated in the Teacher Appreciation packets that were delivered to over 100 teachers at the Nederland Elementary and Middle/Senior High Schools: Century 21, Denim & Lace, Gilpin-Boulder Title, Nedernet, Nednet, Off Her Rocker Antiques, Peak National Bank, Shaklee (Susie Gunn), The Mountain-Ear, and VinTek Communications. “Dear Members of Our Community Chamber of Commerce, It is with joyous appreciation that I received your kind gift for National Teacher Day. The many business “treats” will go to good use, as I continue to shop locally. Nederland is a special community in wich to work and play. The services you each provide (with personally provided pride) gives me little reason to go “down below” to shop. If you don’t have it, I don’t need it, because what we all really need is to experience people such as yourselves in a caring, giving community. I thank you greatly for supporting and appreciating the Nederland teachers and schools. Rhonda Horwitz-Romano, Nederland Elementary School” “Welcome to Nederland” Chamber Packet Deadline is urgent! June 3 at the Member Meeting is your last chance for this season to catch new residents with your marketing message. The cost of $25 is less than you pay for your local advertising, it lasts for a full six months, and catches a target market of newcomers who may not see your ads otherwise. Within this target market, more people will look through a gift bag seeking information about local businesses who welcome them than will notice ads in a paper they have not yet developed the habit of reading. Please participate in this project with whatever you feel you can offer. You may present your offer with your existing brochure, on an inexpensive flyer (black on color is fine), on the back of a business card, or with a small gift item to fit into the packet. Promotional items are available from several sources. Todd Knapper in Golden (303-582-0797) represents several of them and maintains a full set of catalogs at Columbine Family Health Center here. You may contact Mary Coan at Columbine to browse through them (303-258-3301). Last Month’s Member Meeting Twenty-six members and guests attended our May 6 8:00am meeting at The Lodge in Nederland (Best Western). Teresa Warren announced our Sugarloaf advertising project (see separate article), Teacher Appreciation Week packets, and a delay regarding our over-the-highway banner project until power lines can be buried. Serene Karplus introduced four new members and sought hosts for upcoming meetings, reminded members to check their listings in the Mountain Pages, and reviewed topics discussed at the State Chamber Executives Conference in April. Mayor Scott Bruntjen updated us on the Community Center reconstruction delayed by pending insurance claims. Garry Sanfaçon of Peak to Peak Healthy Communities Project discussed the positive growth of the Chamber and its role in the community, encouraging everyone to participate in the Economic Summit two weeks later. Dale Porter updated us on the Historical Society and its plans for all three Museums (Gillaspie House, Mining Museum, and Bryant House), which will not open this Summer due to lack of volunteer hours available. On June 28 they plan an open house at the Mining Museum, to which we may bring in articles for appraisal or display. Joyce Baron-Westbrook reported on Sales Tax Revenues, which are skewed at this time of year by payment of delinquent past due taxes. Discussion Groups garnered several ideas for changes in our meeting structure and newsletters. These will be incorporated over the next few months. One of the changes you will see includes more member introductions, with two members presenting at meetings and one or two members featured in each newsletter. Members will be elected by business card drawings at meetings. Please attend so your business will be featured soon! Our lucky newsletter winner this month just joined on the day of the meeting! In attendance at the meeting were: Teresa Warren, Off Her Rocker Antiques Serene Karplus, NACC Garry Sanfaçon, Peak to Peak Healthy Communities Project Dale Porter, Historical Society and Library Foundation Bette Rittinger, Double B-R Ranch Robert Hurst, Century 21 Cathy Williams, Gilpin-Boulder Title Katie Brandenburg, Gilpin-Boulder Title Gordon Gallagher, Attorney at Law Mary Coan, Columbine Family Health Center Kimberly Spagnola, Denim & Lace Dave Felkley, Bigfoot Snowshoe Tours Cindy McCollum, Horses R Us, McCollum Excavating, Elk Mountain Outfitters Sandie Sandberg, Peak National Bank Violet Aandres, Lifefoundation-Seasilver Rich Deubel, Lifefoundation-Seasilver Ruth Baldwin, Backdoor Theatre Jan Cooper, Backdoor Theatre Scott Bruntjen, Town of Nederland Mayor, Goldminer Hotel Carol Rinderknecht, Goldminer Hotel Gabe Serlen, Guru Sports Kay Lorenz, Black Forest Restaurant Jill Dreves, Wild Bear Center for Nature Discovery Hillary Stephens, Air-O-Pure Portables Brian Mahon, Eldora Mountain Resort Joyce Baron-Westbrook, Town of Nederland Accountant Featured Member Lifefoundation - Seasilver, one of our newest members, is operated by Violet Aandres and her husband Rich Deubel, who also maintains a business as a commercial real estate broker. An avid advocate for health and nutrition for the past twenty years, Violet is a Reiki practicioner and enjoys many years of experience in massage, thanks to her Swedish family heritage. She has tried many health products and only recently found the most excellent and exciting product she has ever seen. A single serving a day provides every vitamin, mineral, amino acid, and enzyme our bodies need in a form totally recognizable by the body, so the absorption rate is approximately 95%. It tastes good, too! She feels the Seasilver product of total nutrition and liquid health are a true gift, especially for the maturing Baby Boomer set. Violet has lived in the Nederland area since 1976, when she traded her watercolor paintings for a house in Boulder, which was moved up the canyon to the corner of Hendricks and Highway 119. Busy working at that time with the Colorado Chautauqua Tour and her own artwork, she still managed to install a sweet cottage garden and settle in to love our area. A while later she served as Secretary to the Chamber of Commerce under Rob Schneider for three years and currently serves as President of the Board of the Boulder County Business Hall of Fame. She invites us all on the Mountain Garden Tour on July 5, which she has coordinated for 17 years. A gardening enthusiast, Violet helped plant the trees at the entrance sign and dreams of the day Nederland is covered in wildflowers. Please contact Violet for information about the Tour and about the amazing and delicious Seasilver product (informational flyer accompanies this newsletter). 303-642-3356. “Get Motivated! Business Seminar” Rudolph Giuliani, former Mayor of New York, will speak on Leadership, Zig Ziglar on Motivation, Ed McCaffrey on Competitiveness, Peter Lowe on Success, and several other famous name speakers will present a “Get Motivated! Business Seminar on Thursday, June 12 from 8am - 5pm at the Pepsi Center in Denver. See the flyer attached to this newsletter for details. The Chamber has paid an advance reservation for our members to attend. This is a great way to return to your business renewed and refreshed. We are looking forward to making this a “day away” outing for everyone who can join us. Cost to you is only $10 for the entire day, plus any meals you choose to buy for yourself. We will carpool to keep the gas and parking costs down and the fun and inspirational level up. Please let us know if we can count you in and whether you’d rather be a driver or passenger. Call or email Serene at 303-545-2126 or serene@karplus.com. U.S. Chamber Report The U.S. Chamber provides research and lobbying support for businesses throughout America, as well as an educational and networking resource for its members. Their policy priorities for the year 2003 are Economic Stimulus/Tax Relief, Comprehensive Energy Policy, Health Care, Litigation Management, Transportation Infrastructure, International Treaties, Broadband, and Pension Reform. Each month this newsletter will highlight one of these topics and bring you updates. Please also feel free to browse their website if you wouldlike information on any of these topics at www.uschamber.com. Access to Affordable Health Care is a strong focus for the U.S. Chamber. Less than 2/3 of non-elderly Americans have workplace health coverage. About 62% of the uninsured are in families where the head of household works full time for the full year but insurance is either not made available by the employer or is too costly for the worker to participate. The U.S. Chamber supports strengthening and expanding the current employer-based system while offering alternatives for individually owned health coverage. Their proposals include:
Economic Summit Committees Meeting The three committees formed at the Economic Summit will hold their first meeting on June 9th at 7:00pm at the Community Center. Everyone is welcome to join the fun as we turn ideas into action. Please read the Special Report Visions & Action Plans page in this newsletter to determine in which of the Vision groups you would like to participate. We look forward to seeing everyone there! Beautification of the Commercial District Our first step in beautifying our commercial district will be to install planters filled with colorful flowers. In collaboration with Peak to Peak Healthy Communities Project, we have an opportunity to purchase at low cost some barrel-sized planters. The Mountain Youth Corps will haul the planters, install the dirt, and plant the flowers. If you would like to sponsor a planter near your place of business, please submit $25 to NACC, PO Box 85, Nederland CO 80466 by June 9th. Sponsorship of a planter is also a commitment by you that you will water the plants and maintain their beautiful display. Next Member Meeting Our next Monthly Member Meeting will be Tuesday, June 3 at 8am at the Goldminer Hotel in Eldora. It is a Bed & Breakfast Hotel on the National Register of Historic Places. Turning off Highway 119 onto the county road across from the Nederhaus (the road to Eldora), continue 3.3 miles until you reach a stop sign. Turn right and you will see it just ahead on your left. Topics for this meeting include speeding tickets, overnight parking on First Street, Summertime Fun Fair, and a presentation about outdoor recreational opportunities in our area. A light breakfast will be served. Chamber Calendar June 2 - Monday - Deadline for Booth Reservations and Sponsorships of Summrtime Fun Fair June 3 - Tuesday - Deadline for Welcome to Nederland Packet submissions. June 3 - Tuesday - Member Meeting, 8am, Goldminer Hotel in Eldora. Free June 9 - Monday - Deadline for Planter Sponsorship to beautify the Commercial District $25 June 9 - Monday - Economic Summit Committees Meeting, 7:00pm, Community Center June 12 - Thursday - Get Motivated! Business Seminar - 8am Pepsi Center, Denver $10 June 13 - Friday - Deadline for Ads for Sugarloaf Residents Convenience flyer June 13 - Friday - Deadline for Planter Sponsorship to beautify the Commercial District $25 June 25 - Wednesday - NACC Board Meeting 8am Peak National Bank June 28/29 - Sat/Sun - Summertime Fun Fair (Volunteers Needed) July 1 - Tuesday - Member Meeting - 5pm. Location to be determined. Free July 4 - Friday - Fourth of July Celebration and Fireworks July 5 - Saturday - Mountain Garden Tour - contact Violet Aandres 303-642-3356 Executive Director’s Page - Serene Karplus 05/23/03 Guerilla Publicity What is a guerrilla? Guerrillas are business operators who substitute time, energy, and imagination for money, who have big dreams rather than big bankrolls. Guerrillas measure their performance on profits, not sales; they place primary importance on how many relationships they build. Publicity is the most overlooked marketing tool, but it can be the least expensive, least risky, and most effective and easiest to use. Publicity provides the widest exposure for the fewest bucks (far less than advertising) and lets us tell our stories in greater depth. It lends credibility because, unlike advertising, people believe information reported as news. Rule Number One is to Honk Your Own Horn. Regardless of what product or service you provide, you are the product. If you don’t tell the world how great you are, no one else will. Promote yourself. Become a one-man/woman self-advertising agency. Tell everyone you meet who you are, exactly what you have to offer, and how it can benefit them. Selling yourself is a full time job. When you repeatedly sell yourself, you build name recognition, which will increase your business because consumers are drawn to names they know. Name recognition isn’t simply knowing who you are, it is also knowing what you do. Position yourself as an Expert. Operating your business makes you an expert in your field - you don’t have to know everything or be the world’s foremost authority on the subject. Tactics for Publicity:
By Jay Conrad Levinson, Rick Frishman, and Jill Lublin President’s Page - Teresa Warren 05/23/03 Economic Summit Greetings members. Last week we hosted our first Economic Summit. It was well attended by both familiar and unfamiliar faces and was very well received by all present. I have great hope in the outcome of this important forum. We found a lot of common ground and have begun to visualize the economic future we desire. Looking toward the future is the only means to change our economic climate. The Executive Committee has already met to arrange the first meeting of the three Action Plan Committees formed at the Summit. It is never too late to jump in and join these committees and we welcome everyone interested in implementing the great ideas that came forward. Everyone is welcome. (See the Economic Summit article in this newsletter for a sketch of the vision/plan for each committee.) Please meet at the Community Center on Monday, June 9 at 7:00pm to make the visions created at the Summit turn into reality! Presentation Summer is just around the corner, and I know many of our members are hoping for a busy tourist season, including myself. Hopefully you are making plans for presenting the best possible image to our potential guests. If you sent your employees to the recent customer service seminar, you are on the right track. But don’t stop there. Physical appearance makes the first impression. Find some way to improve the visual impression made by your business. This can be as easy as planting flowers, picking up trash, pulling grasses or improving your signage. Many East First Street businesses are planning to paint their buildings. Join us in showing our summer visitors that we take pride in how our commercial district looks. Summertime Fun Fair Summertime Fun Fair will provide a busy weekend for all you retailers and restaurateurs. June 28-29. Mark your calendars now. Advertising has begun through printed (Boulder Summer Magazine and Boulder Weekly Summer Event edition) and radio (2-week corporate sponsorship on KUNC) media. Stage performances include kids’ singer/songwriter, Eric West, juggler Peter Davidson, puppeteer Bob Aiken and special guest, Jim Jackson, internationally acclaimed clown in the theater and circus for over 25 years. Each day will end with musical entertainment. Over 60 artists have submitted applications for entry, so East First Street will be full of quality art from jewelry to handmade furniture and everything in between. We are trying to hold visitors through the evening by organizing a musical event utilizing local venues who choose to participate. Purchase of one ticket would get anyone into all venues. A variety of music will be offered. Sponsorship, Volunteer, and Advertising Opportunities We welcome your involvement through a sponsorship ($250 that allows you a banner on the stage and your logo on the official poster) or volunteer to sell t-shirts (yes, tie-dye shirts with the Summertime Fun Fair logo) or work the door of one of the musical venues selling tickets. There will be a special pull-out section of the Mountain Ear that week with a map showing location of the booths. Use the opportunity to advertise your business. Business card size ad will cost $35. Interested? Call Serene or myself TODAY. Together, we can make a difference. Economic Summit 2003 - Special Report 05/22/03 The first Economic Summit of the Nederland Area was a tremendous success! Nearly 100 people representing all aspects of our community attended the all-day conference of presentations and brainstorming. Attendees ranged from local retailers and restaurateurs to home-based and national business owners, from not-for-profit organizations and schools to investors, landowners, and prospective entrepreneurs, from local government to local residents. We have received truckloads of positive feedback from this event. Participants appreciated the opportunity to express their points-of-view and be heard in large and small group discussions. One participant deemed it, “A breath of fresh air.” Our highly revered discussion facilitator Garry Sanfaçon of Peak to Peak Healthy Communities Project maintained a positive environment of working together to envision the future of the Nederland Area. The day began with spirited presentations from guest speakers with expertise in surveys and data collection, creating a competitive downtown, and developing entrepreneurs. Groups gathered to define the positive attributes of our area, why we choose to work, live, and play here. Establishing us to have a lot of common ground in our love of the area, we moved on to envisioning the future and how our community looks, feels, and operates in the year 2010. What do we wish to keep, to drop, to change? What are the priorities for improving our current way of being? What external considerations in local and world events affect us? Dozens of ideas streamed forward (how does Garry write so fast?) and were categorized into three main areas. Our final discussions led to action plans and the forming of committees to launch efforts in each plan. Committees will recruit members to ensure there is enough energy to complete the plans they develop and address funding concerns. An executive committee will ensure that each group meets, selects leadership, and moves forward with plans. The first meeting of the committees will be Monday June 9, 7pm at the Community Center. On the reverse side of this page is a summary of the visions and action plans of each committee. Everyone stands to benefit from every idea that was presented at the Summit. The intention of the Summit is not only to create a sense of cooperation and goodwill, which is certainly one outcome we all will enjoy, but to spring us all into action. Please step up to the plate and follow your passion regarding whichever topic is most vital to you. Contact Teresa Warren (303-258-7976) to sign up for one of the action plan groups. We need everyone’s help to make the action plans happen. If we leave it to everyone else to do, no one will do it. Special thanks to Eldora Mountain Resort for donating their facilities for hosting our event, to Pink Flamingo Catering for providing a delicious breakfast and lunch, to The Mountain-Ear for publicizing the event with a feature article, to our Visitor Center Volunteers for assisting with registration calls and the sign-in table, and to our guest speakers Scott Ford and Brad Segal for donating their services. Visions and Action Plans Vision 1 In 2010, there is a clean, aesthetic, and functional infrastructure that links the central business district with our natural and recreational resources.
Vision 2 In 2010, there is a diverse set of businesses, services, and non-profit organizations nurturing an affordable, thriving community that reflects our unique history, environment, and people.
Vision 3 In 2010, there is a sustainable family-oriented economy with high quality schools, childcare, and well-developed support systems.
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