2008 Leedership Sanford Graduation August 29, 2008

Thursday night participants of the 2008 Leedership Sanford class were honored with a graduation ceremony and the new class of 2009 was introduced.  It was an intimate affair where memories were shared and warnings given to the incoming class.  (Beware Bob’s long stories!)
While the 2008 program is officially over, the class is still working on [...]

Christmas Parade Date Official! August 27, 2008

The Chamber was (and still is) excited about the possibility of managing the Christmas Parade as a benefit for our community and our merchants. Since Jennifer already had experience producing a larger parade, we definitely thought we had a “leg up” on the process. Well, sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. We found [...]

Photos From a Successful Business After Hours August 22, 2008

Last night’s Business After Hours event hosted by the Lee County Phone Book was a great success!  A large crowd gathered at the Depot Building for food, drinks, door prizes and networking.  In fact, one particular guest, who is in search of a sales job, just happened to meet another guest who is searching for a [...]

Business After Hours This Thursday! August 19, 2008

Lee County Phone Book is hosting this month’s Business After Hours this Thursday at their office in the Depot Building.  This is a Must Attend event as one lucky attendee will go home with an ad package valued at $1200!  That’s a pretty good deal in tough economic times.
Plus, Chef Gregg Hamm will be doing [...]

Good Things Ahead for Our Community August 18, 2008

The following is Chamber Board of Directors Chairman Chet Mann’s column that was featured in Sunday’s Sanford Herald. 
Many different groups have wrestled for years with the idea of developing a “brand” for our community. The Downtown Merchants Association, civic groups, ad hoc committees and of course, the Chamber of Commerce are just a few of the [...]

Teacher Recruitment and Retention August 13, 2008

At today’s Chamber Board meeting, we heard a report from Glenda Jones (HR manager at Lee County Schools) about recruiting new teachers to our community.
Glenda’s message was clear: NC’s universities are not graduating enough teachers to fill the positions in our school systems.
State policy makers have formulated several ideas to attract more students [...]

Sunday Column: Will the Pride Patrol Show Up on Your Doorstep? August 11, 2008

Chamber Note:  At the start of 2008, the Chamber’s Community Betterment Division stated its mission as this: To encourage a shared vision of quality of life that enables us to become a preferred place to live and work.  One of the goals set by this committee was to develop a community image award to showcase [...]

Add Your Voice: Next Superintendent August 7, 2008

Lee County Schools is looking for your input.
Tonight at 5 pm at SanLee Middle School, the Board of Education is hosting a public forum where they hope to gather opinions on what makes an effective educational leader for the school district.  Attendees will have up to 2 minutes to share their comments with the Board of [...]

Did You Feel That? August 6, 2008

The “Chamber” means a lot of different things to many different people.  Sometimes, it seems only a few people really know what we’re here for. 
Everyday, all day, we get phone calls, emails and visitors needing information such as phone numbers for other businesses, the last names of business owners, the name of that business on [...]

City Manager Speaks at Public Policy Luncheon August 5, 2008

Sanford City Manager Hal Hegwer was our featured speaker at yesterday’s Public Policy Luncheon, held at Chef Paul’s.
Hegwer gave a great presentation on the city’s new 2008-2009 budget, as well as offering some insight into a few key issues our community is or will be facing.  Growth due to BRAC, profitability of the municipal golf [...]