step into my parlor
When I was a young girl in my grade school years, one of the poems my mother would recite to us her children to while away a boring weekend afternoon would be Mary Howitt’s “The Spider and the Fly”.
"Will you walk into my parlor?"
said the spider to the fly
I can never remember the correct words now, but all I am certain of is that first whimsy line. Oh for sure there’s also another thing that awaits the fly which gets invited to the web… and that would just be totally horrible… but it is that poem’s introduction that came first into my mind when I think about the three years that I’ve been with the Oro Chamber.
Please do not misunderstand me though – walking into the Oro Chamber is not like walking to your death! For that is not the point I wish to make. Far from it!
Working with the Oro Chamber has been a pleasure. And let me mark off a few things that are most wonderful for me:
* hosting the Good Business Forums and seeing members learn something new
* listening to the trustees exchange stories and parley during the monthly meetings
* watching the staff answer called-in complaints still with a smile on their faces and saving the hoot only until after placing the phone back in the cradle
* learning to make do, deliver the services and maximize the budget allotment
* taking a phone call from the US Embassy because the Ambassador wants to meet the officers in an informal meeting
* scrambling schedules and managing tasks to accommodate the activities with other partner offices and organizations
I could go on and on! But all I ever really wish for is this – that members can see the potential of what being a part of the Oro Chamber can mean to them.
With the completion of the Phase I of the Business Development Centre, I hope that we all would put it to good use by making it the foundation of knowledge, networking, business development, and growth for the members and the business community.
For the three years that I’m in the chamber as the Secretary General-Executive Director, I have seen the passion and the dreams of the officers and trustees and other concerned and active members as together the building in the engineering sketches took its shape.
From the point of accepting the land from Pueblo de Oro Development Corporation to the preparation of the project paper, and to the naming of the building… from the ground-breaking ceremony to the selection of the contents for the time capsule (Oro Chamber-style), to the numerous meetings for the floor plan, to the bidding process… from the building funds management to the selection of the paint and the purchasing of the fixtures. All of these were done with a shared commitment that shall even go beyond the edifice that was constructed.
And I am so proud to be a part of it all.
As the Oro Chamber works to live its mission, the Business Development Centre now shall stand as witness to its endeavors.
The inauguration of the building is really a milestone for all of us – this center that we can really call the Oro Chamber’s own – a product of the dedication of past Oro Chamber presidents, trustees and members who have envisioned a project that will espouse all the wonderful things we plan to continue doing for those who are interested and curious and brave enough to be a part of the dream in the first place.
You are given the invitation. And with the opening of the doors of the chamber building, let us make new dreams come true. Step into the parlor.
Oro Chamber building construction photo:
my camera, last March 2008
