First and foremost, thank you to the POB Chamber board and the membership at large for entrusting me with the great honor of serving as your president. To say that I have big shoes to fill is an understatement. I am privileged to follow three great presidents; Francesca Carlow, Gary Epstein and Elan Wurtzel. In their own ways, each has made our Chamber one of the best on Long Island.
I am further privileged to have worked closely with each of them over the course of the last eight years. When I joined the Chamber there were 80 members. As of this writing, there are 201. Our efforts over the last eight years have produced the following: the Fall Festival, Annual Golf Event, Paid-Up Membership Dinners, charitable initiative, increased scholarship awards, a schedule of successful networking events, enhanced digital communications and an increase not only in our membership, but also in the board itself.
I am thankful that Francesca and Elan will continue to serve on the board and that Gary Epstein has returned to be treasurer. I am thrilled to also work with our other board members: First vice president Marianne Plummer; second vice president David Weinstein; membership secretary Andrea Goldman; recording secretary Jim Baker, as well as Michael Chad, Lindsay Covello, Cheryl Dender, Alan Goldberg, Stephanie Horn, Ned Marzigliano and Larry Weiss.
As we move forward, we pledge to combine our talents and efforts for the benefit of the membership at large. We look to accomplish the following: Organize more networking events to facilitate the exchange of business between members; utilize social media to efficiently promote our members’ businesses; review our by-laws and recommend changes that will allow the Chamber to continue to grow and flourish; increase the awareness of our charitable initiative and civic causes and develop new events to benefit both the Chamber and POB Community as a whole.
There is a saying that states “It takes a village…” With that in mind, I ask for your input. The success of this Chamber can be directly related to not only the growth in our membership, but perhaps more importantly, to the growth in the number of members who take an active role. Therefore, I ask for your help. If you have any idea, call me. If you want to join one of our many committees, call me. Please do not hesitate to reach out to me or any board member if you have an idea or an event that you want to organize. Together, we can accomplish anything.
I look forward to seeing all of you at our kickoff membership meeting on September 12th (one week earlier due to the holiday) and at the Fall Festival on September 30th.
Andrew Lamkin,
POB Chamber of Commerce President