We’re very excited to share a few anniversaries with you! As you may know, Botetourt County is celebrating its 250th! And the Chamber of Commerce, formed in 1945, is celebrating 75 years in continuous operation.
Did you know at one point Botetourt encompassed land from just east of here, up through West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, down the Mississippi River, all of Kentucky and back! What a huge land mass! (By the way, you can get a historical map showing this at the Historical Museum in Fincastle.)
There are many fun and educational events that start on February 1 and continue throughout the year. We are excited to be working with the 250th Anniversary Committee to produce a “Business Recognition” event on May 21. Whether your business is a chamber member or not, if your business operates in Botetourt County, we’d like you to be involved. For part of our celebration, we’re asking participating businesses to create a standard sized poster (24”x36”) to be shown at the event. We’d love your poster to show historical images of your business, original location, dates of operation, anything that would explain to those attending. For more clarity and to be involved, visit BotetourtChamber.com/events or call our office and ask for Jennifer. And if your business would like to help sponsor the event, please call Grant. This is going to be a fun event, lots of networking, with more than a few surprises!
We were pleased at the beginning of the month to help host the “State of the County” meeting. We’ve gotten a lot of great comments on how nice it was, how it was good to hear from our officials and the great networking that also happened. We’re humbled by your interest in our county and happenings within it.
The chamber is always on the move and we’re planning more and more events every week. Current planning includes our April 16 Golf Classic, a new business book club, events for our Young Professionals group and more. How do you get plugged in? Follow the events link above and attend. One of special interest would be our Lunch & Learn opportunity January 29 on Succession Planning. If you have a business that’s never planned on succession, don’t miss this learning opportunity led by Lesa Hanlin, executive director, Roanoke Regional Initiatives. Like most of our events, this is open to all who wish to attend.
A hearty thank you to all the businesses that support our chamber. That support has allowed us to assist the business community in the most beautiful county in the state!
