Welcome, everybody to Midday Magazine for this Tuesday, October 22, 2024.
Have your host, James J. Mailov here in Part 2 at 430 today.
We're going to speak with Jessica Jinsky, Program Service Manager with
our Wisconsin Rapids Family Center, looking forward to talking with Jessica
just a little bit. Right now, our good friend, Promise Bach and Marketing and
Communication Director with our Heart of Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce.
Promise. Good to see you. How you been? Good. Good to see you too.
Good to have you here. Good to talk about our friends at the Chamber.
You guys are in such a busy time of year. I am I'm surprised you had time to
talk to me. You've got a lot going on, Promise. Let's jump right into some
upcoming networking events. Yeah, our next networking event is our
Women in Business, one chin. This one is going to be sponsored by Midstate
Technical College and Bridge Marshfield Clinic, US Bank, Coach and Gaming
Nicos, a security health plan, DomTar and NRG Media. It's a mouthful.
It is. Yeah. So this one's pretty popular. I get fills up pretty fast.
It's on November 15th from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. located right there at Midstate
Technical College. Registration is now open. It comes with lunch. It's 35
for members, 45 for nonmembers. And then we did open it up this year for the
Midstate Technical College students for $25. We're going to have a great keynote
speaker, Dr. Shelley Mondike. She is the president of Midstate Technical
College and she'll be discussing, you know, how to lead with purpose and
passion and, you know, empowering your voice in the process of which there's
going to be door prizes and a lot of fun things to do there and a lot of cool
people to meet and network. Registration does close on November 5th. So and we
are filling up quite fast here. So it does something that, you know, we are
interested in attending. I would highly recommend getting that registration
sooner than later. If you need more information, you can visit our website at
WisconsinRapidsChamber.com or give us a call at 715-423-1830.
It was, I want to say maybe a week ago or something. My mom came up to me and
she likes to show me events and different things going on in town in case I
don't see them and I can talk about them on the air. And she was very, very
excited. And she was almost chomping at the bit to talk about this and she
brought up this event. And my mother is a proud feminist, a former, I should
mention former hippie as her words. And one of the things that she raised her
kids and talks so endlessly about is the more and more opportunities in
society for women to supporting women and how we just don't have enough of
those. Things have gotten a little better with that in society, but we still
got work to do on that front. And events like this are that much more
important. Certainly the connecting, the business networking you can do, that
you just can't do it just any event. An event like this, it really is tailored
for that. You're going to be able to have organic conversations with people.
You might not have otherwise. But just the act of it, just even having this
event is already a win for our community and giving and not for nothing here,
but certainly it's important for the women that are going to be able to attend
this and currently do something. But for every woman that's attending and I'm
also thinking about the daughters at home or the young ladies out there seeing
mom or seeing somebody going to this event and seeing women supporting women and
more of that. If you're not a woman out there and you're like, why are you
talking about what I don't care about this or whatever, I bet you care about your
taxes, I bet you care about your economy. Women are a huge gigantic part of
this. And having them more in the know of being able to connect more and being
able to network more, only better is our society, better is our community,
better is our economy. There is nothing but positives to an event like this.
And I want to encourage businesses out there to get your employees a part of
this as well. It's again, it's a great PR move. It's a great move as far as, you
know, networking and maybe meeting and having some conversations you would
not have your employees would have otherwise. But again, an opportunity for
people to support each other. And I think that's an important part of this.
And I would like to add to you know, you don't necessarily have to be just a
woman to attend. There's a lot of men that, you know, they collab and work with
other, you know, women that are leaders in the in our area. So just to kind of
like, you know, show up and support women and you know, then maybe you'll
learn some tips and tricks on how to how, you know, women function in the
workplace. I speaking for all men, we could use every help we can get
way else. Absolutely. And again, promise just to remind everybody,
registration is coming up for this one. You want to get in that your
registration soon. November 5th, is that I see? Yeah, November 5th, it
closes. And then if you need to register, it's on our website at Wisconsin
ravaged chamber.com.
Got an upcoming workforce program and some other events coming up to
my promise.
Yeah. So we have our network exchange for HR professionals coming up on
November 13th. That one is from 11 30 a.m. to 1 p.m. out at the San
Valley Gulf Resort. We're going to meet in the gallery restaurant. The
speaker for that day is Janine Beck-Haffner. She's going to be talking
about effective organization consulting and how a building blocks of
success for leaders. So, you know, if you're in an HR role or a business owner
or a supervisor in your company, this would be great for you to attend. You
can, you know, talk about those HR related subjects and kind of get an idea of
what other people in the area are doing with some of those issues. And it's
really helpful too, especially if you don't have a massive HR department to
handle all these, you know, the variety of work that comes along with an HR
role. Yeah. We're thinking the same thing here. I
saw this and I'm like, man, what a great idea. You talk about one of the
more growing aspects of our business world and more important
aspects of our business world. But at the same time, there's not a ton of
that out there. There's not a lot of resources for that. And like a lot of
things in life, you can listen to others and get good information from other
people. But to talk to people that are actually doing the job and really know
what it's like to go through what you're going through or doing what you're
doing, I would imagine that every HR representative in the area would be
benefited by attending an event like this. Yeah. Yeah. So, this one is
this one is free for members and registration closes on November 6.
So, again, you can register online at our website at
WisconsinRabbageChamber.com. I would like to note for a second too,
just going back to the the women in business luncheon and to this event.
You guys do such a great job of these speakers and bringing in such great
talkers. I look into these people and if I don't know them already.
And both of these individuals, Dr. Shelley and
engineering here, great speakers, really charismatic, really good talkers
and really know their stuff. That's going to be fun. That's a fun part of this too.
Upcoming community events. Got a lot of those coming up
promise. Let's take a deep breath. We'll dive right into these. We'll dive right
into it. Well, it's that time of the year where, you know,
holidays are approaching, you know, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve.
So, we do have a lot of upcoming community events. Our first one here is
Small Business Showcase. It starts November 30th and, you know, ends December 13th.
So, what this is is basically a, it's a passport promotion that encourages,
you know, the community members to visit local businesses. So, the intention
of the program is to create traffic to your, to your business.
So, if you want to participate in this program, give us a call or, you know,
email us. The, to participate, it's only $50 plus a
raffle basket because then at the end, when people turn in their
passports, they get entered into when a raffle basket. So,
we see a lot, a lot of traffic with this one,
especially since it starts right after Black Friday. I mean,
that's a really good week to start. Perfectly timed, yeah.
So, registration for this one closes November 1st and we do have limited
spacing available. I think we're going to do, I think it's like 40.
Is it about, okay, that sounds right. 45. Yeah.
Participants for this one. Not a lot of spaces, that's for sure.
There we have a lot more businesses than that in town. You want to be a part of
this one. This is one of the more popular things you guys do.
It has been for years. I go on to say it was in the beginning of summer,
I had somebody ask, hey, have you heard that they're going to do that again this
year? And while I had not heard from you guys, I was like, yeah,
I feel pretty confident that they're going to do it again.
This is a popular one. It's a fun one and I love these events that the chamber
do does that really are a combination of a number of things.
Certainly buying local supporting local and promoting local businesses,
number one, right at the top of the list. But I hear almost every year from people,
oh, I didn't know this was in town or I didn't know we had this.
And because a business was on this here sheet, you run into this business.
Or even, and not even that, sometimes it's a business next door or something.
The conversations that people have and the people they run into that they haven't seen
in a while or something like that, it really is one of those events that kind of brings people
out of the house sometimes and really gets the community involved.
That foot traffic is so there's no marketing team out there that can necessarily tell you
this exactly causes this. But this is one of those events that it really does create foot traffic
for your business. Yeah, and I don't know how many moms and daughters get together for
Black Friday shopping that get excited to grab this passport and make a whole day out of it.
And we did extend it for a couple of additional days so that shoppers had more time to
hit the multiple stores that'll be participating. So I'm excited.
And to you businesses out there, it's one of the bigger like if I could put this bluntly,
bang for your buck that you can get where for that money you can't put a price on the kind of
PR that you get. Not only supporting your community like it's always good to do with the chamber
you're able to do that very similar to being a chamber member. Just that alone shows your
community that you're supporting local. But the idea of being able to be a part of an event
like this to mean something. And like, hey, it matters to me. I don't know for certain and you
don't I'm not asking details, but I'm almost positive that there are certain businesses that
every year they're like, we're budgeting for this. We're going to be on that. It's just a smart
move. And it's a fun event and looking forward to this one and looking forward to those all
getting going too and everything. So is there a registration date that people have to get these
in by? So participants, if you're going to put a little square on the passport registration
closes November 1st for those that want to be on the passport. Rekindle the spirit. Another one
of our favorite events coming up. Yeah. So rekindle the spirit. This one is we got we got some
nifty stuff going on. I'm super excited about this one. I can't release the information yet.
We're going to we're going to ramp this one up this year. You guys can't see the Cheshire cat smile
promises face like she knows some stuff. She's not telling us, but it's not exciting. It looks
exciting. That's cool. Yeah. So we have a few like minor details to hammer out on this like plan
that we have, but it's going to be exciting. You're not going to want to miss it. It's on November
27th. It starts at 5.45 p.m. West Grand Avenue and Wisconsin Rapids. And then there's also Santa
visits after the parade at Hotel Mead. So anybody that wants to participate and or that wants to be
in the parade can stop by the chamber and you know register for that or they can you know send us
a registration online at www dot Wisconsin Rapids chamber dot com. And so I'm I'm pretty excited
because this one is like growing massively compared to what it was, you know, when I first started
at the chamber three years ago, I've seen more and more participants in the parade throughout the
year and more and more people coming out to watch this. But then this year we have a little surprise
for everybody. So I'm super excited. Well, she's dying to tell us too. I can't wait until the
next day to come in. You might have might have those details worked out by that. And look
forward to it too. And look forward to this event like everybody in the community does. I love this
event. It brings us out. We get to gather. We enjoy it. It's it's something that really is,
okay, now it's go time for Christmas. It really is. It's it's been one of those signs of that.
You get Santa every year well done by you guys. That's a hard get. We've been trying to get them
on the midday show here for years and just no luck. You guys do a great job with that. And while
we don't know maybe some of the details yet, we know this is going to be a fun one. We know you
want you to we we're going to mark our calendars from November 27th. That's going to be fun.
Nikusa holiday parade and fireworks. Few people do Christmas better than Nikusa. Shout out to Nikusa.
I love Nikusa and they they have a lot of fun with this one. The fireworks a part of this is a
real fun aspect too. Yeah. Yeah. I would definitely agree. Nikusa really knows how to
new Christmas fall over there. I just love going down the street sometimes. Yeah,
same thing. But yeah. So the Nikusa holiday parade and fireworks is on December 7th this year.
It starts at 5.15 p.m. in Nikusa. You know, we'll have the fireworks afterwards by the river.
For this one, registration is now open for parade entries. It's 35 for members and
45 for non-members. And then we also have sponsorship or sponsorships open. Well, for both of
them, for both Rekindle and Nikusa holiday parade, it's I'm just I'm so excited because I know this
one is growing as well. And working with Nikusa has always been like a really great time. I really
love working with Nikusa. Yeah. So I'm super excited. Also, Santa's going to be there too. He'll be
at the end of the float. And then afterwards, we'll head down to the river and watch the fireworks
display. It's going to be a lot of fun. Yeah. I get that excitement about Nikusa. Not only
some of the better people you're going to meet working down there and over there, we say, I shot
out to Heather Sayers and so many other people that work so hard over there. But also, it's nice to
see and I don't know. I've only been in the area the last half of my life here and everything. But
one thing that I've noticed in the 20 some years I've been here is the way that this community has
grown together. Yeah. And where there we have rivalries with our high school teams and stuff like
that. But as far as like rooting for each other or looking out for each other, whether it is
Nikusa or Port Edward's or Rapids here, all of our local kind of communities, you know,
having this understanding that we get by together. Like we're stronger together.
You know, you mentioned the rise of the Rekindle the Spirit event and everything. I think part of
that and part of this when I'm talking about right now is really some of the aftermath of the
pandemic and us realizing how much better we are and looking around the country and seeing some
communities that we're not as close as ours is and how that reacted. Similar with Rekindle the Spirit,
we wanted to get out and about. We missed doing that kind of thing. I don't think that's been lost
on a lot of people that being still being able to do this kind of stuff, it still means a lot and
means more than it ever has before I think. And and not for nothing really good time. It's a lot
of fun. It's a lot of fun. How many events do you know Christmas events? Do you know that
have fireworks or at the end of it? It's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. And fireworks at night.
Oh, it's a whole different thing. Whole different thing. That's a lot of fun. So you can, I'm sorry,
go ahead. Oh, I did want to mention too that anybody that's interested in being in the Rekindle
the Spirit parade and you just don't want to take your float apart. You know,
Nikusa holiday parade and fireworks is a week later and oh, it's a great idea. I'm thinking like,
yeah, yeah. Oh, that's great. Well, especially the people work so hard on those floats and everything.
I feel like that's a little bit like, you know, you get your use out of it. If you can get an extra
use out of it, that's you know, worth your time and everything. That's a really good note.
Again, if people want to register for that one, Wisconsin rabbits chamber dot com. Wisconsin rabbits
chamber dot com. Just wrapping up with a couple of other news and notes here promise, where's our
October member of the month taking us? Our member of the month, October is David Farmboro. He
owns and operates rapids homes. He is, it's a new business for real estate agency. Pretty excited
that he ventured off into, you know, his own direction and I'm excited about the virtual tours he
had. Yeah. Yeah. I apologize. David Farmboro. I got to look him up. No, we know David. He's
joined us on the air here many times. As a reality radio, our new segment that we have been doing with
David, this kind of a evolution of let's talk real estate. I've talked with David a lot on air
off air about this particular show that he's going to be doing with us along with just, you know,
this new venture that he's on here and everything. And one of the things that I noted, I don't know
if he noticed it or not, but I don't know if the community has when you hear him or anything,
but one of the things that really stands out to me about David is similar to myself, when you're
a transplant, you have a different appreciation of the area. Yeah. You see it from almost a third
perspective. And while you didn't grow up here and go to, you know, maybe the grade schools with
some of the kids around here, it gives you that much more of an appreciation of, wow, it's really
nice here. This is a pretty cool community. Got some really good people here. You got a lot of
fun things going on here. And it makes you also, after with a lot of those feelings, a lot of
well, I appreciate this. I want to give back to this. I appreciate this. I want to add to this.
It was a big change for me getting this position and getting an opportunity to be able to put into
this community when I was kind of a knucklehead in this community when I was younger. I was never
there. David and I have talked about this where it's a very similar thing for him while he wasn't
knucklehead or anything. He appreciates what this area has given him, what he appreciates this way,
this area has embraced him and his family. And he wants to get back to that. One of the better
ways you can do that is with, you know, real estate and taking his skill set and taking it in this
venture. It's a lot of fun that he's doing this and we have a good time conversating together. But
also, I don't know many real estate shows. I don't know many people that are really putting a lot of
time into that and getting that information out there. I appreciate that David worked so hard on
this and it takes the time to really inform the audience. And there's so many people out there
that are either thinking of buying a home or selling a home or getting into this. The information
David is able to get across is not just vital, but it's local. It's detailed local information
that he works really hard on researching and getting to along with, and we've had some fun
conversations as well about comparing like what homes in England are like compared to here and
some of those conversations have been fun. David's got a wealth of knowledge and really,
really loves putting it back into this area. That's a really good choice. I encourage you to learn
more about Rapids Homes, everybody. You can go to David's Facebook page. You can find it from there.
The heart of Wisconsin Chamber Commerce also has Rapids Home LLC on their link on their website.
You can check out as well. And a nice choice. Nice to see David highlighted there. That's pretty
good. Good for him. Promise, as we're wrapping up, I just wanted to remind everybody that while we
have talked about a lot today and we have covered a lot, there's so much more going on with your
chamber. While we talk about events when the chamber is with us, we don't get the chance to talk
nearly enough, I feel, about being a chamber member and encouraging people to be a chamber member.
I talked about this as sparing a little bit throughout the conversation for a reason.
While there is so many benefits to being a part of the chamber, when it comes to how they can
promote your business, the foot traffic they can create for you, the knowledge that they have
of the area that maybe you don't have or isn't necessarily common knowledge or anything, all these
things are great. But along with that is the PR and the added bonus of being able to tell your
community, I support our community. I'm a part of this community, especially to new businesses out
there. I've talked to a handful of new business owners because when you become a new business owner
with the chamber, you join me on the air here for a little bit and we talk about your business.
So that's a pretty cool get right there, but also it's a chance for you to really understand
your community and that's business 101. Knowing your audience, the chamber helps you do that.
So I cannot encourage enough, if you're a business and you've been on the fence about this one,
we encourage you to reach out to the chamber and become a member. By local support local,
that includes our Wisconsin Rabbits Chamber of Commerce, our Heart of Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce.
Promise, if people have followed questions, one of them more about some of the things we talked
about today, how can they reach you? Just go ahead and give us a call at 715-423-1830.
And you can go to the website at WisconsinRappetsChamber.com,
encourage you to do that. Be sure to follow them on social media as well. It's a great way to keep
up the date and all the great things they're doing and going on in our community. Promise,
looking forward to talking again real soon. You take care. Yep, you too. Thank you.
We'll have more Midday Magazine coming up for you right here at 975-FM1328.
WFHR, we are locally grown radio.