Together, Thomasville and Lexington Chamber Work to Benefit Entire Community
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Businesses in Lexington and Thomasville have the best of both worlds: Each has a chamber fully dedicated to its individual needs, as well as a chamber that often shares resources with its counterpart to collaborate on programs that benefit the economy of the entire county.
“We have found that partnering together on some things that are important to both cities helps us accomplish more,” says Doug Croft, president of the Thomasville Area Chamber of Commerce. “With two cities in the same county, from the chamber standpoint, it just makes sense to produce some things together.”
“We definitely take the opportunity when we can to partner on certain events, like our legislative update every year with our state elected officials,” says Radford Thomas, president and CEO of the Lexington Area Chamber of Commerce. “Something like that, which is very well attended, lets us be more mindful of our legislators’ time, especially when they’re in session.”
The chambers have combined forces for 20 years to produce an annual leadership program and recently spun off a young leaders’ version. They also co-produce a large business fair and other joint events to bring businesses from the two cities together to discuss issues or events that affect the entire county and region.
At the same time, each chamber takes the lead on certain activities that are more focused on its membership, or carries most of the load for a countywide activity. The annual new teacher expo, for instance, is more of a Lexington event.
“When new teachers come here, we bring together businesses to set up exhibits and have a reception for them, and do a county tour so they can familiarize themselves with the area,” Thomas says. “It’s a way for us to welcome them to Davidson County, and thank them for coming to educate our children.”
The Lexington chamber recently launched an industrial council, offering programs and informational seminars for manufacturing and industry leaders on such topics as health care and immigration law. It also has created the Legacy Business Leaders Council, which taps into a pool of community leaders and utilizes them to disseminate information regarding such issues as the city’s recent purchase of the former Lexington Home Brands property.
“You get a lot of different information circulating within the community, and this allows these people to get the ‘down and dirty’ from an authority on the topic, and cut through some of the misinformation that might be going around,” Thomas says.
The Thomasville chamber has its hands full as well, putting on everything from the wildly popular Everybody’s Day Festival to coordinating a variety of economic development programs for downtown merchants and new-business recruitment.
“We work with a lot of businesses that are relocating or expanding, particularly in the retail-service area,” Croft says. “Plus we’re very active in the governmental arena within the community.”
In the end, the chambers pick both their joint and individual ventures carefully, always making sure that everyone in the area benefits from whatever activity is being planned.
“If it moves everybody forward, we do what’s appropriate,” Croft says. “If it’s local, it’s local. If it’s countywide, it’s countywide – we talk to each other, and address those things together.”
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Todd Bennett
