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Does Santa Have Too Much Time on His Hands?
Dec. 30, 2008 — As we sit here in the ChamberWorks newsroom on Christmas Eve, waiting for our internet connection to get up out of bed and greet the day,* I find my thoughts turning to Santa Claus. Not much of a stretch considering the season.
As always he kicked off the festivities here in Fairfield just after Thanksgiving, riding in on a fire truck and sitting down in the Sherman Green gazebo to hand out plush toys to numberless little munchkins. By all accounts, the Jolly Old Elf was truly in The Zone, mesmerizing kids of all ages.
This year the Chamber brought Santa to town with the help of our sponsor Fairfield County Bank and lots of volunteers. We also invited a gaggle of local organizations to sell cookies, hot chocolate, tree ornaments and other such seasonable stuff on the green, and they did not disappoint. Proceeds went to the charities of their choice.
The Gingerbread General Contractors sold out their entire inventory of gingerbread house kits for the umpteenth year in a row — by our estimate they've raised thousands of dollars for the pediatric unit at Bridgeport Hospital. The Kiwanis Club, Audubon Birdcraft Museum, Boy Scout Troop #199 and the Pequot Library were on hand too.
The Milford Happiness Club was kind enough to bring some of their happiness to Fairfield. And that's not all: when the kids weren't lining up to hop on Santa's lap, they and their parents swarmed around tables manned by the Rotary Club, Wakeman Boys & Girls Club, Grasmere Elder Care, Fairfield Theatre Company, Center for Women & Families and more.
Toss in the horse and wagon rides, petting zoo and lots of kids who look like they just escaped from a zoo, and you've got yourself a great afternoon. There's something to be said for meeting Santa here on the green instead of some over-decorated mall.
Then deja vu hit me all over again: The following Friday as I was driving home in the dark, I saw Santa joyriding down the Post Road on the now de rigueur fire truck. (Reindeer-driven sleighs are so last century.) He had a full company of elves and a reindeer or two on board, waving as they made their way to who knows where — by the time they turned onto Ruane Street I'd already managed to lose them, even though it had to be the slowest fire truck I've ever seen. No wonder they waited until rush hour was over.
So, this evening he'll be whooshing through town at a considerably faster pace (even FedEx can't compete when he's on a roll), and then it's over for another year. What does he do during his downtime? Is the story about the Vegas condo really true? Maybe he's responsible for the dangerous proliferation of garden gnomes (and gnome-eating predators) in the summer months.
Or perhaps he disguises himself as a celebrity-on-a-mission, lobbying to save the reindeer forests or joining the United Polar Bears Union on the picket line. I'd say he has more street cred than your average celebrity crusader — and a lot of first-hand experience with climate change — so why not? After spreading joy far and wide for a month, how can you sit on your butt for the rest of the year? We need joy all year 'round.
Happy holidays from all of us here at ChamberWorks.
* The cable modem never did get its act together (it's gonna have to wait till Monday for our webmaster to give it a good hard kick), so we were forced to decamp and set up shop at the office of one of our members, where we were relieved to find the digital waters running smooth as silk.
2009 to be a Banner Year for Fairfield Businesses
Here's something that's guaranteed to get your attention: The Chamber will be running a town-wide "Support Local Business" banner program from Feb. 1 to Mar. 31 (or longer if we can swing it). Designed by Night & Day Media, these stylish banners are yet another way the Chamber can promote our business community in these lean times.
Your business can buy into this campaign by plastering your name on a banner — just $250 for Chamber members and $325 for anyone else that wants in. By sponsoring a banner you not only market yourself to a gazillion people, but also help defray the cost of designing, printing, and hanging the banners.
The sign-up form can be found here:
2009 Street Banner Program.
They're 30" wide and 60" high, with about 1/5 of the space reserved for your name and logo on both sides. They're big and colorful, and cheaper than running a daily newspaper ad for 8 to 10 weeks.
Important: Complete technical requirements for your company logo are listed here. By following these guidelines you will help us speed along the process and put your banner into production.
We have 86 spaces available on a first-come, first-served basis. You can't choose the location of your banner, but we'll start with the Post Road and roll them out from there.
The banner is yours to keep at the end of the program. Hang it in your shop or office, plant it in your front yard (or your evil neighbor's yard), use it as a beach towel for short skinny people — let your imagination run wild.
We need your commitment by Jan. 9, so call the Chamber at 255-1011 to reserve your spot today.
If You Need Some Helping Hands, FLHS Has 'em
Alice Gorman at Fairfield Ludlowe High School has some idle teenage hands dying to be put to good use.
Ignoring for a moment that her email has been sitting idly in our inbox for a month — we didn't mean to forget you, honest! — we'd like to announce some Great Opportunities for our members and just pretend you haven't read about them in the newspapers already.
Alice is working hard to connect high school students with part-time jobs — baby sitting, yard work, snow shoveling, office work, sales clerking, you name it — after school and on weekends.
Of particular interest to Chamber members, she also has an internship program for seniors at the end of the school year, when students venture out into the workplace for 25–30 hours per week in lieu of finishing their last four weeks of classes and exams. (Why oh why didn't that exist when we were in high school? It's not fair!) The program is in its third year and growing rapidly — with 124 students taking part just last year, they expect an even bigger bunch in the spring.
And as if that were not enough, February 2009 will see the debut of a new pilot program for juniors: they're calling it a "Shadow Day." The school hopes to send about 15–20 juniors out into the community on Feb. 2 to shadow professional people at their jobs.
Needless to say, the latter two programs don't work unless local businesses step up to the plate. That's where you come in.
Businesses willing to sponsor an intern or a "shadow" should contact Alice Gorman at the Fairfield Ludlowe High School College & Career Center, 255-7230. And the same goes for business people and just plain folks who need some part-time help any time of the year. There are hands looking for something productive to do, so use them wisely.
More details can be found on our Job Center page.
Now Playing:
The Bride of the Business After Hours Package Deal
The end of the year fast approaches, and you know what that means. Yes! It's time for yet another sequel to that horror movie classic, the Business After Hours Package Deal.
The $135 Business After Hours Package Deal has been reanimated from the dead, and this time it demands a bride! Or something like that.
Fair warning: If you don't grab it before Dec. 31, it's gone with the burning windmills.*
* In case you were wondering, mixed metaphors and muddled cultural references are a specialty of ChamberWorks. We take great pride in our work.