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Discover the heartbeat of Juneau's cultural and community landscape with 'Capital Chat.' This series explores the vibrant world of the community, arts, and dynamic cultural and social events happening in Alaska's Capital City. Tune in to 'Capital Chat' for your essential guide to the pulse of our community, where every story is an adventure and every voice matters.
Joining me is Becca Parks from the Juno Chamber of Commerce. Becca, hello. Good to see you again.
Speaker 2:Good morning. Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1:Who is the special guest you have with you today?
Speaker 2:Well, I am so excited to introduce you and the world to our new administrative assistant, Althea Tan. Tay has been with us for how long now? June. June. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2:Man, this summer, what happened to it? I know. Yeah. And, yeah, we're just, like, so excited. We added a chambeer dog to the chamber mix.
Speaker 2:Nice. It feels like our our little family over at 3030 Vintage Park is coming together.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Tia, where are you from? How long have you been in Juneau?
Speaker 3:I'm originally from Los Angeles, and I've been here since 2019. COVID time. That's when I started here October, late October. And I've been here since then, but I've been coming here since 2015. My hubby is born and raised in Juneau.
Speaker 1:Oh, well, congratulations. And welcome to the chamber.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. It's actually a really great opportunity for me, and I'm very excited moving forward with these amazing people.
Speaker 1:Now you you mentioned, Becca, that there's a dog as part of chamber now. Is that Taya's dog?
Speaker 2:Well, we have two chamber So I have Bowie who travels with me. Right. And Tae has brought Charlie into our lives.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice. Nice. Yeah. We're dog we have three dogs here occasionally from time to time. So we're dog friendly and kid friendly.
Speaker 1:Yep. This So okay. We've got a couple of things coming up this week. We have, the candidate forum happening this week.
Speaker 2:Right? So not this week but they are coming up. So, we want people to be aware. We've got you know, we're we're sort of on the same schedule at the beginning as the Rotary, one of the Rotary clubs but we have September 3 is our oh my goodness. I hope I'm going to get them right now.
Speaker 2:Our school board forum. Okay. September 10 will be our assembly candidates and then September 24, have our gubernatorial forum. That one's going be a larger event. I am so thrilled.
Speaker 2:We're sponsored by Hecla Greens Creek and Kensington so we can have a nice venue, a nice lunch over at the Baranoff Hotel and fit more people in so that more people have a chance to hear from our candidates and make a really great informed decision when it comes time to vote.
Speaker 1:Nice. And I understand that the raffle for this year is sold out. Congratulations.
Speaker 2:It is. Thank you. Yeah. One of our big fundraisers for the year. Again, just a great support from our members.
Speaker 2:Really excited about the cash top prize, but then Alaska Airlines International Round Trip tickets and that awesome, Skagway package. Hopefully, we get our ferry back up and running before that happens. But they've got seaplane tickets. So for this trip, you don't need it and you'll have the hotel. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Plenty plenty of space up there.
Speaker 1:And, the the chamber dinner, which is not until October, already out. You can grab your table, right?
Speaker 2:Yes. We've got one more week of member tier sales and then the following week, they'll open up to general membership and the public. Those tickets are $125 each. We say it's the biggest premier formal event of the year.
Speaker 1:It is. Yeah.
Speaker 2:This year's theme, I am so excited about, it's Juno Grown. We're spotlighting and gonna tell the stories of just some amazing Juno businesses, some of our amazing members that were started here, that have grown here, and that have just had such a lasting impact on our community. It's gonna be a really great night of storytelling.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. And for those that are are not familiar with the work and the purpose of the chamber, let's remind everybody what that is.
Speaker 2:Yeah. We're sort of trifold. We primarily are a membership organization. We are here to serve the business community of Juno and be the voice of the business community in Juno. And we do that through advocacy.
Speaker 2:We've got a really great relationship with the city with as many of our, you know, our delegation, both here, the folks in DC, trying to make sure that we have business friendly policies, and we're doing what we can at a policy level to support starting and growing businesses. And that's everything from making sure we have facilities for workforce support, retention, recruitment, to making sure that businesses can grow that when they want to grow. Then we do promotion. So chances for people to come in and talk, chances for people to sponsor, get their name up in different events, and just coming and networking. The member resources that you can have, we have a luncheon every single Thursday.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness. That's a chance to come meet other people from the community. We have so many great stories of somebody who's come and needed a connection, either a mentor to help them get through a hurdle in their business or an actual service, a partner who's gonna meet a need for that particular time for that business.
Speaker 1:And what's your local business that's listening? And what's interesting is, I think on this show specifically, as you know, we have some brand new businesses come in and talk about what they're doing. And and maybe they're not part of chamber yet. What do they need to do to become a member?
Speaker 2:Just go to our website, junochamber.com. You can sign up right there. You don't even have to talk to us, but then we will call you because we want to talk to you. Okay. And we'll do the outreach.
Speaker 2:You can also reach us by email. We've got great support. The is at the office for info@JunoChamber.com. You can reach me directly if you've questions at director@JunoChamber.com. And then our phone number is constantly escaping me but I bet Tia knows it.
Speaker 2:Do you?
Speaker 3:907.
Speaker 2:Oh boy. Are You go to so the website. It's on there.
Speaker 3:It's on there.
Speaker 1:You you look look that up. We'll waste a little time while you tell us about the whale watching that's happening on Friday.
Speaker 2:So we've one of our member networking, kind of perks for people that sign up. Alan Marine is incredibly generous and donate a tour every year. So, this year, we are taking our members out on the water for two hours of networking. It's a special opportunity for some of those larger donors, but we're able to open it up to folks that, some of our newer businesses and different people that just want the opportunity. So if you happen to be listening, it's another great chance to reach out.
Speaker 2:Again, contact me directly, director@junochamber.com. We really it's one of those chances. The great thing about small town is being able to know who to call, being able to stand next to somebody in line at the grocery store, and have a productive conversation. So this is just one more opportunity to do that.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Taya, do you find the phone number?
Speaker 3:Yes, have the phone number. That would be (907) 463-3488.
Speaker 2:You know, I remember the time when I had like 200 phone numbers stored in my head.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And need to get back to that somehow.
Speaker 1:I struggle with the ZIP code. Yeah. Seriously, 200 numbers. That's crazy. Becca, thanks for coming in today.
Speaker 1:Good to see you. Taya, congratulations on the new year.
Speaker 3:You so much, Cliff.
Speaker 1:Thank you, guys.
Speaker 2:Thanks. Yeah. Oh my god. I