Perry Chamber holds annual meeting virtually

On Thursday, January 28, the Perry Chamber held its 2021 annual meeting over Zoom, and although this meeting was one for business people, it was not for business, new or old. Instead, it was for celebrating.

Dave Forrester, past chairman for the Perry Chamber, opened the meeting with reverent tones of this past year. “Back in March is when our executive board and our board had the first of several virtual meetings. We really didn’t know what this pandemic had in store for us, we didn’t know how big is was going to be, we didn’t know how long it was going to last, and we didn’t know how it was going to impact the health of the Chamber, with our membership, with our financial health, and just with our ability to fulfill our mission [and] our purpose. We started with a very short time to explore decisions for Dogwood, which we all remember, before it became very obvious that we just had to cancel it.”

Forrester, however, went on with hope. “If we can find some blessing in disguise with this crazy year that we’ve had, I think the pandemic did get us to move extra fast, and you guys moved really fast, had to think way outside of the box for even more creative ideas for our members and certainly exceeded my expectations for what could happen. I was really impressed with that, so thank you very much for that. In addition to all the extra efforts our volunteers were having to place on their own businesses during this time, that put just as much energy into helping carry out these new and creative ideas and approaches. And our members, obviously, it just always amazes me the commitment and the loyalty of this community and the members of this Chamber.”

Scott Cox, the new Chairman of the Board then took the floor and took time to thank Forrester for his leadership the year before, and then introduced members of the Perry Chamber, new and old. Wendy Johnson will be taking vice chair this year, Ashley Brown will be the secretary and treasurer and Rob Tuggle will continue his work as legal counsel. The board has also retained a number of directors, including Ricki Free of Coldwell Banker Free, Charlie Grffis of Parrish Construction, Emily Reece of South Georgia Banking, Brince Coody of the Walker Insurance Agency, Amanda Fiebig of the AF Realty Group, Michael Bentley of Perdue Farms, Megan Brent of The Perfect Pear, Jana Byrd of the Houston County Board of Education, Kelly Gordon of Massey Gordon, Mike Pace of Central Georgia Technical College and William Stilley of Firehouse Subs.

Finally, awards were given to various businesses that take part in the Perry Chamber. This year’s recepients were: Amanda Fiebig of AF Realty (Diplomat of the Year), Maggie Dimes of SunMark Community Bank (Volunteer of the Year), Kelly Gordon of Massey Gordon (Businesswoman of the Year), Evans Acres of the Casserole Shop (Businessman of the Year) Beth Redding Cleveland of Morning by Morning Coffee (Golden Nail Award), Drs. Joseph & Marrietta Lomboy of South Houston Internal Medicine (Seabie Hickson Community Service Award) and SunMark Community Bank (Business of the Year). Additionally, Scott Cox was introduced as the new 2021 Chairman of the Board.

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