Come share with us

Every week, I open a new Basket. I call it the Brag Basket, but it’s not really about bragging. It’s about sharing. I started this so you can introduce yourself, share some good news, or congratulate a friend.

The basket is open all weekend, from April 2-4, 2010. 

Speak up and add yourself or another deserving soul in the comments. We all cheer, and everyone feels great. It lets you meet each other a bit. Reading each others’ stories brings us a bit closer to being a community. 

How does it work? You write a comment on this post, email me, tweet me, or comment on this note on Facebook. You tell something great about your week, or you give applause to someone who did good stuff this week. Or you celebrate something wonderful that you tried that failed.

This is not an ad. (I delete the ads.) It’s a conversation with friends. So jump in. And remember to cheer for each other.

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UPDATE:  Amy emailed me this wonderful story from Dublin, Texas:

I just have to brag about the community of Dublin, Texas and our terrific St. Patrick’s Day small business promotion this past week (March 17th, of course.) While we always have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day festival on a weekend before, after or on St. Pat’s., this year, the Chamber of Commerce www.dublintxchamber.com decided to take advantage of immense small-town tourism on the actual weekday to benefit our small businesses. Here’s how it worked.

We heard from our CofC member, Lori Dodd, of Dublin Dr Pepper that St. Patrick’s Day week is the second busiest time for Old Doc’s Soda Shop www.olddocs.com and the Dr Pepper bottling plant (they’re the original bottlers, oldest bottling plant that has always produced the original recipe Dr Pepper with pure cane sugar.) The point is, other than Dr Pepper birthday, this St. Patrick’s and spring break traffic is their biggest week, resulting in thousands coming through their doors. So, Chamber of Commerce knew that in addition to a formal festival, we needed to “build something” to persuade our tourists to stay in town a bit longer, and spend a few more dollars with our merchants. After all, as one of the few small towns in our area with increasing monthly sales (resulting in tax dollars to community building efforts) we needed to “make it work.”

So, we let Chamber of Commerce members like Veldhuizen Cheese www.veldhuizencheese.com, makers of farmstead artisan cheese, drive traffic to their rural on-farm Cheese Shoppe by having a tasting table with a handout that included a map and a $$ savings offer if they come tour the Cheese Shoppe, “ride Norman the Longhorn,” pet the calves, watch the cows milk and tour the farm. HUGE Success.

And, we moved a less than successful stew cookoff to downtown Dublin, promoting more foot traffic among downtown area merchants. Then, we approved a self-annointed “Shamrock Princess” board member, who bravely flitted about town in a beautiful costume and long red-haired wig. As a spokesperson, she was phenomenal.

A highlight of this year’s St. Pat’s Wednesday events was a community dog show, sponsored by local feed/farm/produce store Bradberry’s Best www.bradberrysbest.com. We promoted it starting two weeks before via social media, local media alerts and in area schools, and we were thrilled with a turnout of 400 or so folks, from as far away as 5 hours (they were in the area anyway; our promo wasn’t THAT good!) 174 entries, with money going to 4-H, and matched by a local kennel www.davidsondovetailranch.com. 15 trophies and more than a hundred ribbons provided … and tons of happy kids, and adults! Tourists coming through Dublin Dr Pepper were invited to judge, and had even more stories to tell when they went back home.

Finally, we built (remember this is our first year) a small “carnival” type feel of face painting, tattoos next to Dublin Dr Pepper. The local Cub Scouts and 4-H club benefited financially, and built more of a feel of “folksy, small town.” Local businesses served green pizza and had games on the sidewalk. A costume contest rounded out the day.

We’re proud of what we did in this first year of on-St. Pat’s promotion. Granted, we should have been doing it for years, but missed St. Pat’s opportunities due to the immense time commitment involved by volunteers working the weekend festival. Due to wintry weather on Saturday of this year, the actual St. Pat’s festival was diminished in effect. But thanks to our Wednesday efforts, we had much to brag about. We cannot wait to see how our tax revenue for the month was impacted! Thanks for letting us share!

Here’s a you-tube video created by a local Chamber member, Mike Simpson of 828 Media www.828media.com.
St. Patrick’s Day In Dublin (Texas that is!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6UsTH5b_Vs

Top of the morning to you!

Amy McDonald
Chamber of Commerce Board Member (Dublin, Texas)

Amy also has a marketing communications firm www.mmcsolutions.com, but she was too shy to mention it. :) Thank you, Amy, for sharing this terrific story!