[Music] the blaine business council is an opportunity to get people together to talk about what's going on in blaine so it was really formed to get business owners and the city more connected so that they could better communicate and collaborate and make better decisions for the city the blaine business council was actually formed back in 2013 when two chamber members came to me and both are actually both business owners in blaine and residents in blaine who said that they wanted a stronger connection to the city but they didn't really want to attend city council meetings to try to find out information as to what was going on so it came up pretty organically by folks who really wanted to be more invested in in the city it's not just the city talking it's also the superintendents of the three school districts are there talking about what's happening in their respective school districts we bring in a featured speaker it could be anything from real estate to manufacturing to tourism to talk about again what's going on in that respective field and how it impacts the rest of the businesses in blaine there's an opportunity to have a business spotlighted each quarter which is one of my favorite parts is to hear about why these businesses set up shop in blaine to begin with and what their success story is blaine has always had a lot to offer you've got space you've got attractions you've got economic development opportunities people come in to visit blaine we've got the tpc golf course the national sports center we've got restaurants a shopping mall so it you know inherently has all the right mixture of things as to why you would want to come and invest in blame you get to know each other you get a sense for what's going on in the community both from a city perspective and a business perspective and then again ultimately by having stronger relationships which is what we're all about at the chamber it means just stronger and more informed decisions can be made the blame business council meets once a quarter and we invite anybody you know who has a business in blaine or they work in blaine who want to check it out and get more connected information is always on our website metronorthchamber.org [Music] you