TASTE OF BLOUNT TICKETS ON SALE

Let the friendly competition begin. Taste of Blount, a collection of savory food favorites from restaurants, caterers, food trucks and gourmet grocers, returns for its 17th year at the Theater in the Park in Maryville (across from the Blount County Courthouse) Thursday, Sept. 13 from 6-8 p.m.

Tickets, which are $25 for Blount County Chamber members, $30 for the public and $15 for students 17 and under or those with a college or student ID, are available at the Chamber office (201 S. Washington St., Maryville, Tenn.), by phone 865.983.2241 or online at www.blountchamber.com. Tickets are available at the door the night of the event on a cash-only basis.

A new flare to the event is the addition of food trucks for the first time. Furthermore, culinary judges will present the "Culinary Excellence Awards" based on one item from each Taste of Blount vendor.

Ticket holders will still vote for their favorite appetizer, beverage, sandwich, main course, dessert, presentation and overall winner while tasting savory treats.

Participants at press time include: Artistic Pops, Chick-fil-A Foothills Mall, Chuck's Concessions, Full Service BBQ, Lambert's Southern Pies & Bake Shop, Metz Catering, R.T. Lodge, Rocky Top Snoballs, Rocky's Jamaica Sunrise, Savory Rootz, Soup Kitchen, Sullivan's, The Artistic Bean, The Steel Room, Vienna Coffee House and Which Wich.

The event is hosted by the Blount Partnership and sponsored by Reinhart Food Service, Cornerstone of Recovery, Food City and CBBC Bank. Silver sponsors are Express Strategic Services, Hyperion Networks and Knoxville TVA Credit Union. Media sponsors include WATE-TV, The Daily Times and WNOX 93.1 FM.

 

SKY CITY INITIATIVE MEETING

Are you an entrepreneur? Want to be one?

Join us as we take to the air with Dale Klapmeier, CEO Of Cirrus Aircraft on August 14 from 6-8 p.m. at the Old Queens Buildings (133 W. Broadway Ave., Maryville). He will describe his entrepreneurial journey of building his first airplane in a barn to becoming CEO of a successful aircraft company. There will be food, drinks and an update on the progress of the Sky City Initiative.

 

CREATING POWERFUL LANDING PAGES

The Tennessee Small Business Development Center presents a free workshop about creating powerful landing pages for website on August 16 from 9-10:30 a.m. at the Blount Partnership (201 S. Washington St., Maryville). What is a landing page? Why is it important? Landing pages are one of the most powerful conversion tools available to the small Business owner today! Learn key strategies to increase sales from your existing online traffic, feed your sales funnel and convert prospects into profitable customers. RSVP HERE.

 

CITY OF ALCOA BRIEFING

Mark Johnson, Alcoa City Manager will be giving an update on the City of Alcoa on Friday, June 8 from 8-9 a.m. at the Blount Partnership (201 S. Washington St., Maryville). He will discuss priorities, budget challenges and their vision for the future for our community. The briefings provide an excellent opportunity to strengthen and build new partnerships between members of the business community and local government officials.

 

POWER CONNECT LUNCH

Join us for a power connect lunch on August 28 at 11:30 a.m., at Puleo's Grille (352 Fountain View Circle, Alcoa). Meet, Mingle, Lunch, Connect, Nibble, Engage and Network with other influential professionals.

While you (and the other guests) will have an opportunity to introduce your business, current areas of focus and/or anything you could use help with, all I ask is that everyone shows up with a focus on how they may be able to add value for the other attendees.

Open to ALL Blount County Chamber members, but you must RSVP online. This is a Dutch Treat lunch.

Event chair Tony Saddy of Get Fit Maryville will lead the event.

 

LOOKING TO HIRE? LOOKING FOR A POSITION?

The Blount Chamber has revamped its Job Bank. The Job Bank is a self-service tool members can use to fill vacancies and search for jobs. By using the Job Bank, your association can be a conduit to increasing employment in your industry and community. The Job Bank is a self-service tool, which means members and website visitors may submit their own information via BlountChamber.com.

Inside the Employers tab, you are given the option to post a job or view job applicants. Job posters need their ID number and password to submit jobs to the Job Bank or to view resumes. If you have forgotten, click here to request your login & password.

Inside the Job Seekers tab, this page displays all of the existing jobs that have been submitted and are still within their active date range. Jobs will appear and remove themselves from here automatically, based on their status.

 

CHAMBER BOARD NOMINATIONS NOW OPEN

The Blount County Chamber of Commerce is accepting nominations for Director of Manufacturing, Wholesalers & Agriculture, Director of Hotel/Accommodations, Restaurants and Recreation and a limited number of One Year Directors for its 2019 Board of Directors until August 17. Please complete the online form to nominate an individual you think would make a good board member. Self nominations are also accepted.

 

SOFT SKILLS SESSION FOR SEPTEMBER

It's Your Career! That's the focus of four free soft skills sessions offered in partnership by the Blount County Public Library, the Adult Education Foundation of Blount County and the Blount County Chamber of Commerce that are scheduled over the next five months.

Registrations are currently being accepted online at www.blountchamber.com for a class entitled Improving Your Presentation Style - Speaking set for September 28. This course qualifies for .2 CEU's awarded by Pellissippi State.

The other classes offered include Improving Your Presentation Style - Strategies for Engaging Presentations, Making Your Social Media Look Good and Creating Infographics for Promoting Your Business.

All classes are conducted in the Blount County Library's learning lab located at 508 N. Cusick in Maryville and limited to 50 participants. A complete class description is located on the registration site. All classes run from 8-10 a.m. with networking beginning at 7:30 a.m.

 

ALL THINGS GOOGLE

The "All Things Google" Lunch and Learn Technology Series is a professional development workshop series for adults who seek to learn about the Google platform, applications available through Google and how to access and use these applications (Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Drive, etc.) This technology series is offered by the Blount County Public Library with funding provided by the Tennessee State Library Archives Library Technology Training Grant.

This Lunch and Learn series meets in the new Learning Lab at the Blount County Public Library on Fridays each month from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. The $10 registration fee includes a box lunch and participants will have the opportunity to network. Each of the topics offered will be divided into 3-4 weekly sessions that can stand alone or be taken consecutively. A total of 50 classes will be offered with a new schedule released each month.

To register for classes in the Lunch and Learn Series please visit the Blount County Public Library website http://www.blountlibrary.org/248/Technology-Classes.

 

AUGUST MEMBER-TO-MEMBER PROMOTIONS

Member-to-member promotions are here for August. Submit to the email below. Check out the offers from Pellissippi State and Gold Crown Vacation Club. See these and other promotions at member-to-member promotions. New offers are being posted almost daily, so check out the Blount County Chamber of Commerce Member-to-Member promotions online. This Member-to-Member Promotional Program offers you and your company the opportunity to market your products and services to the membership.

 

Here's how it works:
1. Submit a PDF of a service, product or discount you'd like to offer to the Chamber membership to jmuir@blountpartnership.com. Be sure to include an expiration date.
2. An email with all the promotions will be sent out on the final Monday of every month to our member database.
3. All promotions will be posted on www.BlountChamber.com

 

REMEMBER TO SHOP LOCAL

Think local first + Buy local when you can = Being a local!

 

Shopping at a local store means you can get an expert opinion about the products that you're purchasing.

 

Find what you're looking for in the Chamber Directory.

 

GOT AN EVENT OR NEWS? WE'D LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT

Is your organization hosting an event in the community? Submit it here on our community calendar. If it's a tourism event or any good news about your business, please send it to us. We'd love to share it with the community.

 

REMEMBER WHEN

Topping the Billboard Hot 100 chart this week in 1988 was "Roll With It" by Steve Winwood. The single spent four weeks at No. 1 and was nominated for two Grammy Awards in 1989, Record of the Year and Best Male Pop Vocal performance. The album was also nominated as Album of the Year. The song also holds the distinction of being the last #1 song of Casey Kasem's 18-year run as the original host of American Top 40.

Steve Winwood - Roll With It