Since 1923, we’ve been taking care of your business.
For 85 years, the Chamber has been your partner in a healthy and vibrant community!
In honor of our 85th year, we’ve set a goal for ourselves. Rather than rewards or celebrations, we’d like to do something a little different; we’d like to bring this business community to even more folks like you who work so hard to help our mountain towns thrive! While we’ve added a record number of new members over the past few months (we’ve introduced them to you in this newsletter) we also want to make sure that more people know that they can be a part of this supportive and productive business community. Our efforts always have more success when we’re working together to make things happen!
OUR GOAL THIS YEAR: 500 MEMBERS
We’re only lacking a few applications to make this a record-breaking year. With 500 members, we would be a stronger organization than ever before! You can help us get there by letting us know of someone you’d like to recommend to the Chamber. Call us and we’ll be happy to take them some information! Please help us reach our goal this year in honor of our 85 years of service to the community. And thank you, as always, for being our partners in business!
Chamber Office News – We’re Working For You!
We can now take credit cards! In an effort to make it easier for our members to join and manage their membership, we now take credit cards at the Chamber office. You can come by our offices in downtown Sylva or call us to set up a credit card payment!
Tour de Tuck Business Sponsorships are still available. Business sponsorships are still available for the 3rd annual Tour de Tuck Bicycle Challenge, slated this year for Saturday, Sept. 20. The ride has increased its participation steadily since 2006, offering two rides again this year and featuring the most miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway of any organized ride. We’ve got a very reasonable way for businesses and friends to join us in this event through business sponsorships, which gets your business an annual ad on the Tour de Tuck website (with more than 57,000 hits per year!), inclusion in a thank-you ad in Smoky Mountain News and Fun Things to Do in the Mountains, and two tickets to our holiday mixer! Business sponsorships are $100 for friends and $200 for businesses, and other sponsorships are available for accommodations and campgrounds. For more information, go to www.tourdetuck.com and click on “Sponsors,” or contact us by phone or by email to set up your sponsorship!
We’ve got a new marketing tool for our household services-related businesses! Our staff has created a directory of home maintenance businesses, from lawn care & earth work, to cleaning & repair, to supplies, windows and floors. They’re all conveniently listed in a tri-fold brochure that’s available on our website, through our Visitors’ Centers, and through member offices in real estate, brokerage and more. You can read more about this effort to serve all our members more effectively at http://www.mountainlovers.com/content_reloInfo.asp or download it directly at http://www.mountainlovers.com/pdf/homeMaintenanceServices.pdf
Our Jackson County Happenings calendar of events gets longer and more extensive every month! Make sure your business events, classes, and other public occasions are included in Happenings, distributed widely through our offices, accommodations, attractions and on our website. All events for the calendar should be submitted with an email or phone call to Mary Kelley at mary@nc-mountains.com or 586-2155, and remember, we must have your information by the 15th of the month for inclusion in next month’s publication. If you’d like an example of what your event will look like, visit http://www.mountainlovers.com/pdf/happenings08-08.pdf.
The monthly Friday Night Live! series partnered in July with two events – an antique car show and an open produce & craft market – to create a wonderful mountain evening for several hundred people! Our thanks to those who participated by hosting musical events and staying open for the evening! If you’re interested in participating as a host in August, September or October, please give us a call and let us know. We can give you musicians’ contacts and more, plus we’ll market the whole event to make it easier for you to get involved! Musicians, crafters, growers, and car enthusiasts are also welcome to call us for more information!
Most of you should have received our requests these past few months, via email, for updated contact information. We sent these emails out to each member with a link to your directory listing, making sure we have the correct phone, email, website and physical address so that your website information is correct. If you’ve received this, we’ve updated your listing with those changes and will keep it on file for next year’s visitor and relocation guides; if for some reason you haven’t heard from us over the past few months with a request for updated information, please contact us and let us know the correct email address that we can use to send you the listing. (For these questions, you can email us at jctta@nc-mountains.com or emily@nc-mountains.com.)
Summertime’s Been Busy - Meet Our New Members!
Alarka Highlands
Artists’ House Too
Cheddar Box Country Store
Legacy Home Builders
Maggie J’s Jewelry
Oak Hill on Love Lane
Sign Crafters
Smoky Mountain Dog Bakery
Sylva Yoga
Timber Frame Vacation Rentals
The Well House
KMR Handwoven
Sharp Business Systems
Spring Street Café
B & B Builders
Cross Stitch, Etc. / Front Street Café
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Custom Window Tinting
I Spy Dirt, Inc.
Jimmy Mac’s Restaurant
Mountain Breeze Café
The Old Mill
Sleep Inn
Smoky Mountain Lighthouse
Mountain Party Tents
Atlas Acupuncture
Carolina Document Security
Choo Choo Coffee Co.
Community First Mortgage Co.
Goshen Timber Frames
Inline Design
WNC Home Maintenance and Repair LLC
MR Fashions |
North Carolina Updates
NCDOT Litter Sweep: The Litter Sweep takes place on all state roads from September 20 through October 4. All you have to do gather up your employees, friends or group members, pick a road to clean up, and call the NCDOT for information about where you can pick up bags and other materials! More information is available at www.ncdot.org/beautification or by calling 1-800-331-5684.
The NC Department of Labor is warning small businesses to be aware of a Labor Law posters scam that’s going on right now. Here’s their memo:
Effective July 24, 2008, the minimum wage will increase from $6.15 per hour to $6.55 per hour. (This is the second phase of a three stepped increase enacted by Congress). NCDOL has updated the Wage and Hour Notice to Employees to reflect the minimum wage change.
Because of the change, private poster companies are sending threatening mail in an attempt to intimidate employers into buying expensive posters or risk incurring substantial penalties. Ignore these solicitations. Your tax dollars have already purchased your business a poster, so save your money and call NCDOL for your free set.
If you have any questions about the new posters or the poster law, or you would like to order the new posters, please visit our Web site at www.nclabor.com/posters/posters.htm or call us at 1-800-625-2267.
Go Green! Part II
Did you know that every minute we consume nearly one million plastic bags, all over the world? That’s 500 billion annually!
The U.S. alone goes through nearly 100 billion of those. These bags take nearly 1,000 years to break down, and their production uses 12 million barrels of oil each year!
Our focus this month is on reusable shopping bags. We’ve all heard the rant about using plastic bags – they cost a ton of money, oil, and time to produce; they take literally forever to decompose; they wind up on roadsides, in the oceans and lakes, and take up tons of room in landfills; and they’re being consumed at a rate that’s just scary. So what can we do? In addition to using canvas reusable shopping bags on our personal time, like those for sale at most of our local grocery stores, we can also encourage those who shop at our businesses to participate! Consider printing a reusable bag rather than a t-shirt for fundraisers – it will encourage others to use the bags! Merchants can team up to order reusable bags with their town or district logo on them and offer them in every shop. At the least, you can recycle plastic bags at the store where you got them.
Is it too late for all those bags you have in the pantry or a kitchen cupboard? Consider some of these uses for old plastic bags:
- Small Trash Can Liners
- Carriers for wet Bathing Suits, towels, etc. on trips to the lake!
- Trash bags for your car or truck
- Lunch sacks for work or school
- Cut open at the seams, lay two bags end to end, and use a crochet or knitting hook to weave a “bag” rug!
- Cat Box liners
- Overnight luggage (especially for kids going to grandma’s!)
- Donations to thrift stores, mechanic shops, food banks and church soup kitchens
- Store seasonal wreaths, flags, plastic flower arrangements, and other items
- Turn inside out and use as a “mitt” for your hand to mix hamburger, cookie dough, or other messy items
- Use it as a parachute for G.I. Joe, Ninja Turtles or other action figures with a few pieces of yarn tied to each handle!
- Put plastic bags over your socks before you put your boots on to go play in the snow to keep feet dry and warm!
- Use as stuffing for pillows – 20 or 30 bags, lightly balled and placed inside the fabric, make a comfortable pillow
- Wrap food items you’re throwing away or composting in plastic bags to keep the smell down before you take it out!
Some facts about Jackson County that you probably didn’t know…
Harrah’s Cherokee Casino paid out $73 million in employee wages in 2007! And 36% of those employees are Jackson County residents!
According to a recent survey from WCU’s Department of Athletics, 80.6% of all football game visitors also dined out or shopped while they were here! Additionally, 42.3% of those football fans reported spending one or more nights with us when they came to watch the game!
The highest waterfall east of the Rockies is Whitewater Falls in Jackson County, 411 feet high!
Print Worthy: Chamber members may submit news articles for our monthly e-newsletter. News items are accepted by fax by calling 586-4887, by email at jctta@nc-mountains.com or by parcel post at 773 West Main Street, Sylva, NC 28779. Editor's discretion applies.
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Soul Infusion Tea House is celebrating their seventh anniversary this weekend! Jason and Karin have been open for seven years in their lovely location on Highway 107 in Sylva, and they’ll be there this Friday, August 1, for dinner hours, with special guests playing at 9 p.m.! To celebrate, they’re bringing big-name bluegrass artists Curtis “Dr. Dobro” Burch, a two-time Grammy Award winner, and David Via of Corn Tornado, the three-time Merlefest Songwriting champion, to their open-air music garden for an evening of original, soulful songs, great harmony, vocals, guitars, mandolins and Dobro playing!
The event is family-friendly and open to all ages, held outdoors weather permitting. Tickets are $15, available in advance and at the door, and kids 12 and under are free. For tickets or more info, call 586-1717 or visit www.soulinfusion.com.
