Chairwoman’s Article April 2020  

The expression, “what a difference a month makes?” comes quickly to mind as I write this article.  I certainly could not have imagined the vast difference in how we operate as business leaders, owners, and employees in just 30 days.  Last month, I talked about the events and programs that we would be cancelling through April.  However, as each day brought about new data and information to us, the Chamber realized that cancelling wasn’t the right thing to do, or the appropriate word to convey. A much better description of what needed to occur and continues to happen is “REINVENTION” of programming, especially as the timeline to a full recovery is unknown.  This is not the time to sit back idly and wait for the pandemic to pass us by. 

Now is time to demonstrate the resources, connections, ingenuity, and speed of action that our Chamber has during times of crisis and quite frankly, every day.  Within the last couple of weeks, the Chamber has shared valuable information on state and federal funding for your businesses through virtual calls/meetings and included a COVID-19 Resource Page on the website, wochamber.com.  We have surveyed our members, to help us determine the sorts of information you want and need during this unprecedented time.  Additionally, we have  successfully converted various face-to-face networking events and turned them into virtual networking opportunities. 

We are providing these opportunities not with our bottom line in mind, but  to address your rapidly changing business needs. Each virtual event has a distinct purpose, some are to help with your bottom line, which we know in certain cases can be devastating to your business. Others are to help cope and learn ways to overcome/survive this pandemic.  While some of these opportunities may seem like they are just for fun; the Chamber’s 5th core value; it’s important to note that even while having fun, these are also opportunities to do business and learn from each another. 

We all realize keeping businesses running and being supportive is of the utmost importance. Activities that a month ago seemed inconceivable as a virtual event are now common across the nation. Conducting business virtually has become a new way of life.  We now have successfully implemented “Virtual Spotlight Speakers” and “Virtual Lead and Feed” events. We will continue to promote Virtual Spotlight Speakers through April and are excited to bring you the first “Virtual Celebrating Extraordinary Women” event.  We will also soon be hosting a “Business Happy Hour”, in lieu of a Business After Hours.  Commerce happens in many ways; events are just a piece of the puzzle, so stay tuned we have more opportunities to facilitate. 

There are so many other examples of commerce happening and of members supporting one another and members supporting our community.  This difficult time has facilitated some of the best business to business and business to community stories which we have shared through social media posts, web content on the restaurant guide, as well as News and Blogs.  We know there are many more unsung heroes and we want to know about them.  To do this, we are launching a Facebook Group to share more great stories through our West Orange Chamber Business Resiliency & Resources Group. 

Let’s show how we support our greater West Orange community; in good times and during tough times! 

We will get through this together.

Deborah Rios-Barnes