CLEARLAKE— This week at the Judge’s Breakfast in Clearlake Joan Mingori and Russ Cremer presented on redrawing the Clear Lake Chamber of Commerce, leading the conversation into an open forum discussing how to best help the county’s small, local businesses.
Mingori, the unofficial historian for the CLCC, gave an overview of the organization’s previous programs geared towards their expansion and exposure to youth, including the workforce one grant that originally established an ambassador program where high school aged kids are employed by local resorts. Mingori also explained why there are two county chambers of commerce, the Clear Lake Chamber established in 1947 and the Lake County Chamber established in 1943.
This was originally done to better serve the community, as Lake County is very large and total representation was harder to accomplish, thus two groups working together was a better approach. Mingori explained that this actually forged a separation between the two, with each entity covering a different area – the Lake County Chamber being responsible for the greater county while, according to Mingori, “The Clear Lake area tries to focus on what we call the gateway, from the Oaks to Middletown. Hitting those business, marketing our businesses from up here, that’s where it went.”
Mingori noted that the chamber is always looking for volunteers and opening up a discussion for how to continue improving the county stating, “Our whole purpose is to make our county better. I don’t ever plan on leaving Lake County and I hate it when I see people leave, so that’s kind of my push.” They also dispersed a survey that will be available on their website shortly in hopes of gaining the feedback necessary to finalize their strategic plan.
Cremer facilitated an open forum style discussion, gearing the conversation towards the lack of staff and volunteers felt throughout the county in various industries. Cremer said, “There’s 125 to 150 members, we’ve been growing this past year pretty well. We got a new website at the beginning of the year and we use that as a recruitment tool.” They also have a presence on Facebook as well, all run by their administrator Ginger Kite. Cremer added, “We are really looking for and need more volunteers, we recruited one this past week but we hope to pick up more so we don’t have one person covering (a post) all day.” Despite their online presence, due to low volunteers, the CLCC does struggle to maintain a personal, physical presence especially at the county’s visitor centers.
During the open forum, the idea of retaining our population and especially our workforce arose, with attendants brainstorming and exchanging ideas as to how best accomplish this. Charles Thomson, a veteran who recently moved back into the area was able to bring back the Cub Scouts program and feels that if we change our perception of how we currently operate, it will change our community. Thomson is also currently working to revive the local Boy Scouts program and hopes that programs like these will work to provide career pathways to keep our youth here. District 2 Bruno Sabatier said, “I think that we’re failing to meet the new generation’s perspective of what the world has to offer. The Community Colleges rely on local physical boundaries of workforce while the new generation is not working within physical boundaries anymore.” This acted as a springboard to a larger conversation on outdated policies, procedures, laws, and even culture.
For more information on the CLCC please visit their website clearlakechamber.org. The Judge’s Breakfast is held weekly every Thursday at 7 a.m. at the Highlands Senior Center and is open to the public. Next week’s speaker will be the Mandala Wellness Center on Cobb.
