I’m honored to be the new President of the Greater Temple Terrace Chamber of Commerce. For those of you that don’t know me, I am the Audience Development Director at the Tampa Bay Business Journal and have been with them now for almost 4 years. I have lived in Florida for 5 years now and am originally from Cincinnati, Ohio where my parents and sister still live.
We are approaching our 50th anniversary here for the chamber and I have a few things I am going to focus on to help us prepare for it.
1. I want to continue to focus on membership and growing that facet of the chamber through more involvement from our current members. David Long our VP of Membership along with the committee has had a great year in new member recruitment and I see this trend continuing in 2013. I want to focus on current member involvement through increased participation in chamber events and committees as well as developing new groups within the chamber to help brainstorm on how to make this chamber the most effective for yourself and your business. The best way to recruit new members is to show them how well this chamber works for you.
2. Phil has done a wonderful job in continuing to help get our younger members more involved in the chamber. With the help of Lauren Tice, Jamie Klingman, Emily Allshouse, and myself, we have grown our Young Elite Professionals group through a more structured program and a focus on local charities in the area. This has helped us gain some new members. Over the next year, I plan on continuing to cultivate our younger members into leaders within this chamber. Our President Elect Jamie plans to start a Leadership program for the young professionals of the chamber to help facilitate growth amongst them.
3. Phil also has done an amazing job with the Buy Local First! Campaign and I want to continue this and integrate Jamie’s Cash Mob into this to bring more awareness to local businesses that chamber members and the Temple Terrace community as a whole need to help support.
I am thrilled with our board this year and feel that we have one of the strongest group of board members yet! I plan on setting us up for success in 2013 so that we can then kick off our 50th year in style! Thank you to Barbara and Lauren for all they do day in and day out to help us succeed we couldn’t do it without you first and foremost!
Sara Leutzinger
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Greater Temple Terrace Chamber of Commerce President 2012-2013