MARBLEHEAD — The Marblehead Chamber of Commerce is hosting a virtual educational workshop series, which includes special guests and coffee with the chamber, to maintain a connection between its members and the community.
Andrew Christensen, a chamber board member and past president who chairs its education committee, has put together public educational seminars on a monthly basis until November of next year. The seminars are available to the public and are free of charge.
The series includes special guests that provide knowledge and advice on a variety of topics. Michael Thompson, a certified mentor at SCORE, a company that offers coaching by local and experienced business professionals to small businesses and nonprofits to help them reach their goals, will join the series on February 22.
It will also feature Daniel Martiniello, of the Small Business Administration, to discuss Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) forgiveness in April and Stephen J. Farrar, a certified public accountant, to provide updates with the tax code under the Biden administration in June.
Other forums will discuss social media, insurance, small business law and real estate. The chamber has plans to host the sessions through Zoom and will post updates and contact information for potential attendees to receive the Zoom link on its Facebook page .
Christensen said that with the pandemic, chambers have been significantly impacted financially and haven’t been given much assistance. It hasn’t been safe to host the “normal” events, such as ribbon cuttings, face-to-face socializations and fundraisers.
“I don’t see the financial piece getting better for chambers so I want to show that we have opportunities for membership,” said Christensen, who is looking to add value to the chamber membership and hopes that the workshop series will do so.
A subcategory of the educational workshop series is the virtual Chamber Coffee Chat. The chats are for members only and are held every other Tuesday.
Peyton Pugmire, a chamber board member, is orchestrating the Chamber Coffee Chats, with Christensen, and said that the first one, hosted on February 9, was a lot of fun. Pugmire said the idea to do an informal coffee hour was brought forward in hopes of coming together, on Zoom, during the pandemic to provide a conversation and communication outlet for members.
“The goal of these chats are to come together in general,” said Pugmire. “Keeping us as a chamber community together and keeping conversations alive during difficult times. It provides an outlet of support to our members.”
The coffee hours focus on engaging with members to hear what’s going on in their lives and the community. It is structured to provide everyone with time to share whatever they want, whether it’s a life or business update, and to provide assistance or referrals to anyone in need.
“Even for last week’s coffee chat there were referrals being made and we left with new ideas to consider with new business,” Pugmire said.
Christensen said he knew everyone and their businesses on the first chat but left learning something new from everyone. He hopes to do the coffee hours for a long time, but is thinking about scaling back to once a month as soon as more members are involved.
The Chamber Coffee Chats will alternate between 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. on the first Tuesday and 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. on the second. Pugmire plans to eventually set a solid time, depending on which seems to be working best for most people.
Chamber members are encouraged to attend the chats and bring a “plus-one” to spread the word and increase awareness and interest.
Christensen wants to remind people to email him at [email protected] for the Zoom link to events because the link is not available on the chamber’s Facebook page.
Allysha Dunnigan can be reached at [email protected].
