BEULAH CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

MAY 2016 VOLUME 29, ISSUE 5

CHAMBER CHATTER

2016 Board of Directors

Linda Pouliot, President

Jerald Isaak, Vice President

Bill Suter, Director

Deb Schafer, Director

Marie Mettler, Director

Chastity Dolbec, Director

Brent Torgerson, Director

Maverick Thompson, Director

Leanne Stiefel, Director

Amber Skalsky, Director Gaylen Sailer, Director

Staff Sarah Tunge,

Executive Director Terry Morrison,

Office Technicican Denise Brorby, Office Assistant

Publication First Day of the Month

Deadline Third Thursday of the month For both copy and advertising

Chamber Office 300 Highway 49 S

P.O. Box 730 Beulah, ND 58523

701-873-4585 phone chamber@westriv.com www.visitbeulah.com

The Beulah Chamber and the City of Beulah are hosting a clean-up night again this year. In addition to cleaning up ditches and curbside items, there will be a social at the Beulah Civic Center following. We’ll be grill-ing up burgers and brats! Volunteers are asked to contact the Chamber office to get on the list. This helps us plan our assignments for the day! Those last minute plan-ners can meet at the Beulah Transfer Station at 4pm on Monday May 9th for assignments. For more information or to sign up, please call the Chamber Office at 873-4585.

The City & Chamber team up for clean-up night!

The kick-off Chamber Lunch & Learn event was a huge success! We had about 20 members in attendance for the inaugural event. Darrold Bertsch and Marti Raad were our featured speakers. “This is something we would like to see continue to grow and to be able to offer up diverse

speakers and learning op-portunities,” says Sarah Tunge, chamber executive director. “Feedback from the event has been very positive and we’re excited to begin working on the next installment.”

Lunch & Learn A Success

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TUNGE’S TAKE Rain, rain go away—come again another day! Actually, I’m loving the rain, it’s much needed. We are extremely excited to announce that we have a new website! We’ve redesigned it, updated things and tried to make this something that is fluid and useful! There have been a few items that we’ve caught as fresh eyes take a look at the site. Please take a moment to scroll through, paying attention to the business section. If there’s something we need to change or update for your business give us a call! We’re compiling a list. The appraisal company we are working with sent us a report and that has been provided to the board and the City. We’re waiting on the report from BSC before we enter into any conversation on the building. The inspection/appraisal didn’t really show anything we weren’t aware of—the roof is at the end of it’s life and there are some repairs needed in the basement due to water issues. Staff from BSC is working on their re-port and we hope to have it in the near future. Once we have all the information the board will need to de-cide how to proceed. As we talk about this, I’ll make sure to keep the membership in the loop. Work has begun on the Dakota Walleye Classic, the committee has met , registrations are coming in—we’re at about 160 teams and donations have also begun to come in. I would remind you that if you have a mone-tary or prize donation, please get those to us. I’m needing a few volunteers for the tournament and rules meeting so check your calendar for July 21-23! I’m heading to the Mid America Chamber Executives annual conference the first week in May. I’m pretty excited to network with other chambers throughout the Midwest. I’m hoping to come back with some great ideas as we work to continually improve our chamber. The office has been working through training for the new motor vehicle program that is being rolled out in June. We will all be in Bismarck May 3-4 for training at the state office . The office will be closed on these two days. This training is on how to use the new program and will be followed up with another one day training prior to the roll out on Jun 13th. Wish us luck as we try to learn a completely new process! In other exciting news—there are several new businesses in town! I’m so excited to see a variety of busi-nesses opening up in Beulah. There’s a candy store in the Greystone Building, a new feed store in the old VFW building, Don Pierce has taken over the American Family Insurance business to name a few. I love see-ing our business community grow! Get ready to hear more from the office on events as we look for volunteers for a busy summer! Cheers, Sarah

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Beulah Chamber Board

Customarily this space is reserved for businesses who are dedicated to assisting the Chamber meeting their

goals.

Your Chamber Board has been working hard on several things over the past few months—advocating for doing

business locally and the building to name two. Their guidance and input has been extremely valuable each and

every month. It’s fantastic to have a board that is interested and engaged!

Please take a moment when you see a board member to say Thank You for all they do to keep the Chamber

moving forward in a positive and progressive way.

2016 Chamber Board Members:

Linda Pouliot—President Jerry Isaak—Vice President Bill Suter, Director

Deb Schafer, Director Marie Mettler, Director Chastity Dolbec, Director

Brent Torgerson, Director Maverick Thompson, Director Leanne Stiefel, Director

Amber Skalsky, Director Gaylen Sailer, Director

Grow it and Share it! Glenn Muske, Rural and Agribusiness Enterprise Development Specialist

Sharing an effort that Julie Garden-Robinson has been leading, “Field to Fork.” As the website (https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/fieldtofork) mentions, it focuses on Safely Growing, Processing and Selling Specialty Crops in North Dakota.

One of the aspects of this program, is a weekly webinar covering a variety of topics contributing to the local fruits and vegetable efforts going on in North Dakota. Don’t worry though about the ones you have missed. They are all archived at: https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/fieldtofork/webinars

Want to know more about the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act or high tunnels? What about food preservation or food safety? You will find these and more archived webinars there. Plus the main page, https://www.ag.ndsu.edu/fieldtofork, has more information on specialty crops, processing, and a guide on how to become a food entrepreneur.

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Enjoy Your Competition BY GLENN MUSKE If your a small-business owner, this title may have caught you be surprise. Who wants competition? Business owners often see competition only as something that detracts from their own bottom line. Well, you may want to think differently. First, competition keeps you on your toes. Just by their presence, you need to stay better tuned to what is going on in the marketplace. Second, strong businesses have a focus. Without competition, you may tend to spend less time develop-ing your specific focus or edge. What you have may not fully meet the customer’s needs but, you ration-alize, what choice do they have. They actually have a huge choice and that is not buying from you at all. Third, competition builds a bigger market. This occurs in two ways. First, more people in the local mar-ketplace are exposed to the items on which you compete. That’s a good thing as more people being aware typically makes more buyers. Some of the demand will result in increased sales for you. A bigger market is also built because your area becomes a go-to destination. Customers will more likely to find larger selections, a better chance of everything being in stock, and perhaps better deals. Last, and maybe most important, is competition means there is a market. Over the years, I have worked with business owners who have been happy they have found a business opportunity that no one else is in. Well, there was a reason. People didn’t want the product or service. So the “opportunity” became a resource pit that took their time, money and energy. None of this is to say that sometimes there really is too much competition out there. Trying to find a toe-hold in an over-saturated market also can use your resources that could best be spent somewhere else. So when you see competition, don’t despair. Respect what it may bring. Realize you may need to sharpen your game. And take on the challenge.

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CHAMBER CLEAN UP DAY Monday May 9th

4p City Transfer Station

Join us as we do some Spring Cleaning around town!

We’ll meet at the transfer station at 4p for as-signments—contact the Chamber Office if you

plan to help!

There will be a social following at the Beulah Civic Center about 7p.

Next meeting—Monday June 11th—featuring

the Heritage Park Market Committee

Mark Your Calendar! City-wide Rummage Sales!

Get ready to go hunting for treasure all around town. Beulah City-Wide Rummage Sales are on Saturday May 14th! Contact the Beacon at 873-4381 for more information including maps.

Beulah High School

Graduation

Sunday May 29 1:30p

Beulah High School

Congratulations to the Beulah High School Class of 2016!!

OFFICE CLOSURES:

Tuesday May 3 & Wednesday May 4— The office will be closed for computer training in Bismarck! Monday May 30— The office will be closed for the Memorial Day Holi-day.

PAGE 6 CHAMBER CHATTER

Job Service ND at the

Beulah Chamber Office

Representatives from Job Service ND will be at

the Chamber Office to help you with all your

unemployment, job application and other

needs!

Stop by and see them if you have questions.

May 5 & 19 from 10a-12:30p & 1p-2:30p

June 9 & 23 from 10a-12:30p & 1p-2:30p

Chamber and CVB Membership

Reminder

Renewals for Chamber and CVB member-

ships have gone out along with reminder notic-

es! We’ve had a pretty low response rate so

we encourage you to please get your member-

ship information returned to us as soon as you

can!

If you’re not sure if you’ve sent your member-

ship in, feel free to call the office, we’d be hap-

py to look if up for you.

PAGE 7 CHAMBER CHATTER

PAGE 8 CHAMBER CHATTER

High Plains Concepts 6th Annual Ladies Night

When: Thursday May 5 Time: 4p-9p

1133 59th Ave SW, Beulah

Fun, Flowers, Tasty Snacks and a Little Wine Door Prizes and a 10% discount on all plant purchases!

Don’t miss out!!

PAGE 9 CHAMBER CHATTER

PAGE 10 CHAMBER CHATTER

May 2016 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 City Council Mtg 7p

3

4 5 Job Service—Chamber Office Planning & Zoning 7p

6

7

8 9 City Clean Up Night! 4p Beulah Transfer Station

10 11 Driver’s

License Beulah Civic Center

12 13

14 City-wide Rummage Sales

15 16 City Council Mtg 7p

17 18 Chamber Board 7a

Country Kettle

19 Job Service—Chamber Office Planning & Zoning 5p

20

21

22 23 24

25 Driver’s

License Beulah Civic Center

26 27 28

29

Beulah High School

Graduation

30

Memorial Day

Office Closed

31 Heritage

Park Market Begins!

Mid America Chamber Mtg—Sioux Falls

Office Closed for Training

City Spring Clean Up week