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Browse past news items in the ChamberWorks Archive
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A Natural Setting for a Business After Hours
The Connecticut Audubon Birdcraft Museum hosted our latest Business After Hours event with aplomb July 18.
With live birds on hand (literally), free chair massages courtesy of Maggie French Massage Therapy Center, and catering by Vino on the Brick Walk, it was a little more than your average networking event.
It was also a scorchingly hot evening, but that didn't stop 50 or so people from descending on the museum, which had plenty of space for folks to wander with a cold drink in hand. Or they could venture outside onto the deck if so inclined.
Executive director Bernie Mucci and his staff (assisted by some feathered friends) made everyone welcome in their recently renovated facility, with both the store and museum open for tours. It was a relaxing environment, the perfect place to unwind and chat up fellow business people, which is exactly what you'd expect from a business after hours among the trees.
We won't be having another Business After Hours until Sept. 13, so feel free to take the next month off, and we'll see you all at Fairfield County Bank in September.
Should be a tad cooler then.
Fairfield Makes Top Ten in Money
Money Magazine's list of the Best Places to Live for 2006 put Fairfield in the #9 slot. Yep, Fairfield.
In a Boston Globe article, the magazine's executive editor Craig Matters said that this year's list focused on America's best "small cities," places with less than 300,000 residents that don't depend on nearby metropolitan areas for culture, recreation and jobs.
The quality of Fairfield's schools, wide access to cultural resources and its startlingly low crime risk -- 3 points on a scale where 100 represents the national average -- helped put the town in the top ten, alongside far larger communities such as Fort Collins, CO and Scottsdale, AZ. Connecticut's reasonable tax rates and average weather -- not too hot, not too cold -- also contributed.
Fairfield was the smallest small city in the Top Ten, and one of just two members of the Connecticut delegation on the overall Best Places list (Stamford placed #46). An interesting feature of Money's web site allows you to compare Fairfield with other Fairfield County communities that didn't make the list -- like, for example, Greenwich.
If anyone asks, we'll say that we aren't the least bit surprised. That's our story, and we're sticking to it.
Women's Business Center Gets Major Funding
Senator Joseph Lieberman came to the Budding Gourmet July 18 to announce that the Connecticut offices of the Women's Business Development Center would receive $500,000 in federal funds under a pending appropriations bill.
Started 20 years ago in Chicago, the WBDC is a non-profit organization that provides training and career assistance for its clients, which include both entrepreneurs and business professionals. Along with the Budding Gourmet's Leslie Arcesi, Sue Cadwell of Health in a Hurry is another Chamber member who has benefitted from the WBDC's programs.
Soggy, But Not Without Cheer
The 2006 Arts & Crafts Show started out brightly, with big crowds in the morning hours. Sporadic torrential downpours cut into attendance during the afternoons, but many of our artists and crafters reported good sales despite the rain.
With dozens of exhibitors on hand there was something for every interest, and we had the Kiwanis Club grilling up hot food and the Chamber's strawberry shortcake tent to spread some cheer on a not-so-perfect weekend. Plus we had coffee and breakfast goodies for the artists on Saturday morning.
Our judges chose six lucky winners, three each in the fine arts and crafts categories:
Arts
- First Place, $100: Bogdan Bakiewicz, Albrightsville, PA; jewelry
- Second Place, $75: Tom Kretsch, Westport, CT; photography
- Third Place, $50: Walter Flores, New Haven, CT; batik
Crafts
- First Place, $100: Ori Goldberg, Manchester, CT; jewelry
- Second Place, $75: Lenny Talmi, Jamaica, NY; jewelry
- Third Place, $50: Louis and Barbara Booth, New Hyde Park, NY; jewelry
Next year, maybe we'll just give the jewelers a special achievement award and erect a bronze sculpture in their honor.
And we will most definitely request better weather. Count on that.
Pictures from the June Business After Hours
Saint Tropez Bistro Francais was the site for our June 21 Business After Hours, which drew about 70 people for some networking goodness.
Greg Beno really outdid himself with his latest dotPhoto slideshow, getting it online in record time the very same night. So blame our webmaster for not posting it here sooner.
You can blame him for a few other things while you're at it, but the poorly timed rainstorms on Arts & Crafts Show weekend were not his fault. That much we know.