Cocke County Partnership/Chamber of Commerce Programs
Business After Hours:
As an active member of the Cocke County Partnership/Chamber of Commerce one of the many benefits includes hosting a “Business After Hours” (BAH) event at no charge to the business. Business After Hours is an event that can be very beneficial to your business by allowing other chamber members and the public to get to know what your company does in our community and how they can benefit from your goods and services. The Chamber staff does all the marketing and invitations for this event; we ask that you provide light refreshments for the guests. Our database is over 300 people and businesses so the potential for your company to make new contacts by hosting a BAH is significant. Of course, we encourage the business to invite personal contacts that might benefit from attending. This event is held at the place of business and begins at 5:30pm and lasts until approximately 7:30pm. Our president, Don Hurst, will do an introduction of the business and the representatives and then we allow the business representative to welcome everyone and give an overview of what the business does, history, production, etc…we also encourage the business to provide business cards or other marketing materials for the guests to take with them so that your business will stay top of mind with the attendees.
We believe that local networking is an instrumental tool in building better business contacts and is one of our key focus areas at the Chamber of Commerce. We hope that you will consider taking advantage of this opportunity to help build your business in Newport/Cocke County.
Quarterly Member Breakfasts:
Like the Business After Hours, hosting a breakfast is an excellent event to help other chamber members get to know what your company does in our community and how they can benefit from your goods and services. The same criteria as the Business After Hours, except that we hold the breakfast from 7:30am-8:30am.
New Member Spotlight Night:
Annually, normally in January, we hold a “New Member Spotlight Night” to showcase all the new members from that have joined the Chamber within the previous year. Each new member gets a six (6) foot table to showcase anything about their business. The event is set up similar to a career fair. The chamber staff invites all the other chamber members to come out and meet the new members. The chamber staff provides light refreshments for this casual, but beneficial event.
Job Shadowing Program:
The Chamber of Commerce instituted this program in April of 2010. We worked in partnership with the Cocke County Education Foundation to get this wonderful program off the ground. The program is open to juniors at both Cocke County High School and Cosby High School. Each student must submit an application if they would like to be considered to participate in the event. Included in the application they select the career they would like to pursue after post secondary education. A panel of local business/community leaders reviews the applications and 30 students are chosen to participate. After the students have been accepted into the program the Chamber staff pairs the student with a local business (Chamber Members) that reflects what career they have chosen. This is an excellent way for the students to get firsthand experience and make a more informed decision about what career they want to purse in the future. The program takes place during school hours and lasts the entire day. This was a huge success in 2010 and we are excited to offer it again in 2011!