The Board of Directors of the RRCC completed its annual Board retreat Dec. 2 at San Francisco Plantation. Facilitated by Spears Group, Cleveland Spears maneuvered the group through a rigorous variety of activities to help mold the Chamber’s 2016 plan of work.

A few months back, a Communications taskforce was formed to seek out additional support for the Chamber’s marketing pieces.

A communication audit was conducted, Chair-Elect Annette Wray conducted a couple “value” exercises with the Board, then the Executive Committee was presented with all the findings to hash out the most effective way to proceed and utilize this info to map out this year’s board retreat.

The Executive Committee decided to change things up a bit by not just including Board members in this process. As most of you know that work or deal with organizations, sometimes we have to repeat our stories multiple times.

Well, with even doing so, sometimes the point just doesn’t stick. With that in mind, the Executive Committee said, “Let’s expand the opportunity beyond just Board members.” Members from the general membership were selected based on their engagement and volunteerism and invited.

I am happy to say out of 20 Board members and 10 additional invitees, there were 28 to attend.

The morning started out with a scavenger hunt on the grounds of the plantation (remember how cold and showery the weather was last Wednesday).

Amidst the wet shoes and umbrellas, it was a great way to bond and build cohesiveness during a time of survival of the fittest. Groups were formed and given 45 minutes to locate 15 items.

This was a great exercise to find out who dominated, who partnered and who just wanted to go their own way. And I say that with a smile! Sincerest thanks to Raiza Pitre with Cox for facilitating this exercise for us.

At the end of the day, we found a lot of differences and commonalities on perception of the Chamber of Commerce. We have a lot of work to do, but nonetheless, YOU have a vibrant group of diverse business leaders ready to partner and band together to continue to work together to improve our communities to ultimately improve quality of life across the region and state!

I look forward to sharing the final findings with you in a future post.

Sincerest thanks to you for taking time to read this column. For more information about the River Region Chamber of Commerce, visit riverregionchamber.org.

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Chassity McComack is executive director of the River Region Chamber of Commerce. Email her at Chassity@riverregionchamber.org or log onto riverregionchamber.org.