It’s April and time to start thinking about growing that garden. Growing a local ecosystem is no different than the seed selection, tilling, nutrient adjustments and all the other steps that go into having a successful garden. The Chamber of Commerce has been busy this April working on growing our county business garden through site visits, working to add education opportunities and more.
We started April off with a great lunch and learn about Succession Planning for our small businesses. We had a great turnout for the informative presentation on implementing steps to help ensure the transition of a business or positions goes smoothly. The Chamber presented at the Patrick County Tourism Summit about what all we do. That event, hosted by Patrick County Tourism was another informative and great networking opportunity for our local businesses.
Early in April the Chamber attended the Kids Fishing Day. If you have never attended it is so much fun to watch all the kids and their parents fishing. It was a great crowd, and we were lucky to unveil the River Ranger buckets there. These buckets are located at the Free Little Library area on the trail and are for people to borrow. Each bucket has supplies for you to explore the aquatic life found in our river. We just ask that you place the supplies back into the bucket and return it to the library so that it is ready for the next person. We also have a bucket available at our local library for you to check out and use either in Dehart Park or take home to your own waterway.
We also visited with a few of our local businesses. Always fun to see our businesses in action. One that was bittersweet was to Stanburn Winery on April 19th. That was their last day of operation. After fourteen and one-half years, they are retiring. We will miss them and their long-time involvement not only as serving as board members for the Chamber but also for all the community events they helped with.
This month the Chamber also attended the National Signing Day at P&HCC – Patrick County site. This is an exciting day where students who will be enrolling in the certification courses at the college get their own signing day similar to sports signing days. Elevating the importance of the commitment of these students who enroll in programs such as the Lineman, Welding and other credential courses is important. We also worked with P&HCC to ramp up some of their entrepreneurial workshops to be offered here in Patrick County. Look out this fall for when these classes will be offered. They will be wonderful small learning opportunities for our local businesses to brush up on skills or learn new ones.
Our next seminar is Pre-Venture Planning for Entrepreneurs on May 6. For more information, this seminar or any of our others, visit our website at www.patrickchamber.com.
Hope you have planned your garden this month and get out there and enjoy planting.
(Adcock is the executive director of the Patrick County Chamber of Commerce)
