Transcript:

My name’s Tim Jones, I’m President of Citizens Community Bank.  We have locations in Valdosta and Hahira and Morven.  I’m heavily involved with the Chamber.  For years our bank has had a long-standing relationship with the Chamber and support of the Chamber.  Two or our past Presidents have been Chairmen of the Chamber, so I’m very proud to be the third in the bank to do that.  

Some people ask why in the world do I want to give three and four and five hours a week volunteer time to the Chamber.  And at times, I ask myself that because it gets very busy, but I can tell you that everything that the Chamber works on is a very high priority and enhancing business in Valdosta.  That directly affects banks, mom and pop businesses, everybody in the chain of business in Valdosta, as far as consumers too.  So it helps me to understand, it’s a learn-on-the-job kind of thing, but it helps me to understand the role that the Chamber plays.  

The Chamber has several areas where we interact with business and contribute to enhancing business in Valdosta.  We have our Seeds Resource Center.  Our Seeds Resource Center is widely known for providing resources in upstart businesses as well as small businesses that are growing. Varian Brown heads up that center, and we have helped literally hundreds and hundreds of businesses in the Valdosta area with Seeds.  

We also have Opportunity Central.  Opportunity Central is an area where we’ve identified opportunity for knowledge-based businesses to grow and we’ve partnered with partners like GSU, Wiregrass and identified those knowledge-based types of businesses that we can focus on.  Opportunity Central also deals with the under 40 professionals, and we call them Metro One.  It’s exciting to work with the under 40 professionals because they’re so excited about their up and coming careers as they develop and they have new and innovative ideas, so they bring fresh ideas to the table and offer a completely different dimension to the Chamber work.  

We also have our legislative active committee. Our Government Affairs Council does a really good job.  Megan Smith and Ron Borders work real closely with our legislative area in the Chamber and this year has been a hotbed of activity for that.  We feel like we carry the banner of the membership in a strong way and get a lot done for our Governmental Affairs Council.  So we look forward to continuing to listen to the community through our listening sessions and responding to what they feel is important.  Our membership of 1,500-plus has a great voice and we listen constantly and respond to their needs.  

For more information about any of our initiatives or our divisions, please visit our website at www.ValdostaChamber.com.