The three core tenets of the Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber creating value for members are networking, visibility, and advocacy. While they have managed to convert some educational sessions to virtual live events through the technology of Zoom, one of the most sought after and successful opportunities for years among those three linchpins has been the regular monthly conduct of Business After Hours events.
Not since the pre-pandemic days of late winter has the Chamber been able to host an After Hours event with a sponsored business. Until tonight.
St. Joseph’s Schroeder Furniture had signed on long ago to host a special After Hours event to showcase their 45th Anniversary in business. They encouraged the Chamber to allow the event to proceed, and President & CEO Arthur Havlicek concurred that, with the proper arrangements and precautions, it was time to get back some semblance of networking. This was not your ordinary Business After Hours, tonight.
As members and guests arrived at the event, they found a large tent on the vacant property adjacent to Schroeder Furniture along Hilltop Road. First to greet them was Havlicek himself, sporting an infrared digital thermometer used to scan their foreheads to assure that their body temperatures were in the acceptable range. In the photo above he checks State Rep Pauline Wendzel upon her arrival. He then proceeded to ask a short series of health-related questions and once they successfully passed that, they were dispatched to the usual Ambassador’s welcome table.
As Arthur noted, even that table “looked different than normal with a posting of the mask requirement from the latest executive order.” He adds, “Since we have a tent and since this is an outdoor event, we are required to remain below 100 people total, and the mask requirement will be enforced. We have a no-contact check in option where the member can scan a QR code, from which they can plug in their name, phone number and email address which will also help us in the event that we have some type of spread so we have data for contact tracing. We want to be absolutely prepared in the unfortunate circumstance should an illness be discovered.”
And there was more, with hand sanitizer presented by Forever Clean Soap Works, with about 15 to 20 of those spread all throughout the venue. The Chamber also ditched the usual name tags, opting instead for a new color-coded name tag system that allowed guests to demonstrate their chosen comfort level ranging from “Okay with hugs and handshakes” to “Okay with saying Hi and staying distanced.” That allowed people to have a visual cue of other’s comfort levels and worked to match their own.
Inside the sprawling store, the Chamber conducted tours of 10 people at a time, as Havlicek says, “Because the public event restrictions are 100 outdoor and 10 indoors. We’ll do 10 at a time and there are hand-sanitizing stations all throughout the store. We’ve tried to think of just about everything. We’ll sanitize the tables when they’re done. There is a buffet option in the ten, from Classic Catering, but there will be Plexiglass barriers so it will be more like you’re at a Subway shop. That’s safer than servers circulating through the crowd with platters, because it allows for more distancing within the tent. We’re well under the allowed limit.” Reservations suggested that there would be 50 or fewer, depending on how many followed through with their reservation plans.
Southwest Michigan Regional Chamber Business After Hours events are ordinarily a once a month affair. Arthur says, “As you know, networking is an essential part of our mission at the chamber, and a lot of that is traditionally in-person networking events. We’ve been very successful in converting a lot of trainings to virtual events, via Zoom, but for something like this, marking the milestone 45th anniversary of the Schroeder Furniture business, they wanted to still be able to do something, and we said, alright we will research and figure out the best way to make it work and keep people safe.”
Sarah Spoonholtz from the Chamber did several Facebook live postings to get additional exposure and for those who were not able to make it, as the Chamber wanted everyone to feel included as well. Havlicek says, “We’re using this is a learning tool, as well, because we’re planning our 60th annual golf outing this year at the end of August, and we’ll just keep fine-tuning until we’ve got things perfect, because that’s a major milestone event for us.”
Reflecting on the huge task of prepping for the event, Havlicek was not sorry that they were being careful, suggesting, “As a community, we need to find a way to move forward. That definitely means finding that new normal as we do everything possible to keep people safe.” He adds, “I wanted to voluntarily limit it to under the 100 threshold just because we don’t want to tempt fate.”
While it was a festive event, wherein you could see the smiles in the eyes since the face masks were in place, Havlicek voiced concerns about the latest trends in the pandemic, saying, “With Lansing talking about potentially moving stages backward by dialing things back, that would be very unfortunate, especially when they seem to know as mentioned in their news conferences exactly where some of the spreads are occurring, so I feel like there could be a, as I called it back in April ‘a measured approach,’ but now we need an almost micro-targeted approach to really keep folks safe, yet keep Michigan moving forward.” He warns, “Businesses can’t afford to go backwards. Not now.”
