Paul Szmal: Jared is here from the FLX chamber. So we get a chance to catch up with him once month talk about some of the activities the chamber has done and things they have coming up morning. What's up?
Guest: Yeah, absolutely and we can start with the most recent Chamber event which was an business after-hours mixer at Lackland Inc.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, that happened just a couple weeks ago. It was a huge turnout for anybody that hasn't been to the property. It is a beautiful place. They've been doing renovations on it over the last couple years. And we just got to tour meet some of the directors meet some of the residents. It was it was really a beautiful event. The cool thing about these business after-hours mixers besides the obvious networking opportunities is places like this you get to see, you know behind the curtain. See what goes on and and how the business operates day to day and you know maybe some of the challenges that they face that maybe you as a business owner. You're facing the same thing.
Guest: Yeah, so all went well all went well, yeah great turnout. We're very happy with it. We thank you for Lackland for hosting. It was yeah.
Paul Szmal: Do we know when the next one is coming up?
Guest: The next one is not gonna be in May because we have our golf tournament. But we do have one coming up June 8th, and that's gonna be at Wadham's in Phelps. We'll have more.
Paul Szmal: Oh, there you go. Yeah, Wadham's Enterprises. I know they haul a lot of milk product.
Guest: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.
Paul Szmal: Well, absolutely. Okay, nice segue. You mentioned golf tournament. Let's talk about the golf tournament.
Guest: Yep, so golf tournament is our biggest event of the year this year. It is going to be on May 20th at Big Oak golf course signups are open. Signups for teams are about 75% full. So anybody looking to participate with a team should visit the website today. Booths we still have a ton of those open anybody interested can additionally visit the website and let us know.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, I know what's involved with the booth?
Guest: So a booth is is kind of like a trade show booth. You have the opportunity to talk to the golfers as they're passing by you have like a little activity going on to kind of incentivize them to come talk to you spend some time with you, right and I are you doing the are we doing a win a car on a hole?
Paul Szmal: We're not doing the win a car on a hole. We are we have we're in talks with a couple people for hole-in-one sponsors.
Guest: Okay, okay, because I know in previous years there's been different hole-in-one prizes and I think one year was one of the dealerships put up a chance to win a car. Yeah, which is commonplace with these kinds of tournaments. But if you've never played in one of these, you know you put a foursome together and you just go out and you have fun knocking the ball around for a day.
Paul Szmal: Yep. Yeah, all in support of local business in the FLX chamber.
Guest: Yeah, and you're gonna get a good feed afterwards too because they always do a good feed of Big Oaks. So again, that's May 20th FLX chamber.com.
Paul Szmal: FLX chamber.com. All right, so that's where you can go to register for it and lecture. It's about 75% full. Which means there's room for what do you figure maybe 10, 20, not even?
Guest: Oh, okay. Yeah, so you definitely want to get out on that because that might be filled up who knows by the end of the week.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, so that's May 20th at Big Oaks golf course. I want to mention again to the downtown space that is available where the FLX chamber office is you actually have some display window space available. Which can be used for advertising purposes.
Guest: Yep. We we rent those out on three six and twelve month basis and it's just a way to get some extra foot traffic. Extra exposure in a place that has high foot traffic, especially as we go into these summer months. There's gonna be a lot of people downtown walking around.
Paul Szmal: Oh, yeah. Yeah, and there's also the office space still available there you've got what a couple of a couple of spaces?
Guest: Well, we actually did just rent out one of them.
Paul Szmal: Okay, the former bid space is currently available. And if you're looking for information on that, you can contact the chamber at three one five seven eight nine one seven seven six.
Guest: Yeah, I just think about this move your business in and then join the chamber because they're right next door.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely, one of our new neighbors just came to the Lachlan mixer.
Guest: Yeah. Yeah right in the right in the building. That's always a good thing. I was speaking of members. You've got some new members. We want to welcome.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, we have a we have a decent amount and a pretty group that we're proud of. Scouting America the Seneca Ways Waterway Council Finger Lakes Community Action Cayuga Nation Enterprises, which includes Lakeside Trading Lakeside Entertainment High Point Dispensary New York Life and The Ontario County Office of Economic Development.
Guest: That's a pretty diverse group right there.
Paul Szmal: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Covers a covers a lot of different stuff. Yeah, we have been we've been on a push to just expand the businesses that we work with to better connect the businesses that we have and not to put you on the spot, but if he has could hazard a guess how many members now.
Guest: Members around 270 yeah.
Paul Szmal: Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So growing we're going we're going for the 300.
Guest: Yeah, we're going for the 300. Yeah, sure, absolutely and you know, there's a lot of benefits to being a chamber member. We don't really get a chance to talk about that too often. So let's spend a minute talking about you know, what a chamber membership entails what it gets you that sort of thing.
Paul Szmal: So we focus a lot on business-to-business connections networking. Connecting business owners with the people making decisions that the other businesses. In addition to that we do a lot of PR work. We work closely with a lot of the local news stations to to put news out there. The networking mixers we try to advertise businesses for 12 months at a time to just gain that extra exposures so it's a lot of PR marketing and networking.
Guest: Yeah, and there can be a lot of business-to-business transactions that can result from that networking process.
Paul Szmal: Absolutely. Even the most recent Loughlin mixer. We had one of our representatives. Representatives from Scouting America there and they were they were making plans to do like volunteer stuff out at Loughlin. You know what? I mean? So you never know what connection you're gonna make.
Guest: Yeah, it's kind of like the yeah I think it was a big word in the 80s and 90s synergy.
Paul Szmal: Yep. And that but that's really what it is in the truest essence of the word. Let's say thank you to the annual partners as well while we've got a minute.
Guest: Yes, thank you to our 2026 annual partners for your continued support. Those include Canada Eglin National Bank Casella waste systems community broadband networks Emerson Cleaning Services ESL Federal Credit Union Fairfield by Marriott Finger Lakes Partners Insurance four winds chimney Guardian Glass Halco home solutions HEP sales in North Main lumber lakeside roofing and siding materials Massive construction enhanced to the Finger Lakes Reliant Credit Credit Union and Waterloo container.
Paul Szmal: And I do want to mention if you're a business owner and you're sitting there thinking well you know the beginning of the year is really when I should have joined the chamber. Nah, no, no, not that not the case at all. You can join any time.
Guest: Yep. And in fact for the rest of the year, we are running a promotion that you you get ten or so free mixer passes with a new membership. So you get a chance to come experience those mixers without the added cost of them.
Paul Szmal: Yeah, exactly. So check it out FLX chamber.com is the web address got all the information and again there's only three or four slots available for the golf tournament on May 20th. So if you want to snag one of those up before they disappear, I'd get on that today.
Guest: Yeah Jared as always I appreciate it man. Thanks so much.
Paul Szmal: Thank you so much. Have a great day.
