Chamber Update

Please give a warm welcome to our newest members of the chamber: Victoria Underhill of Morgan Stanley, Health and Taxes LLC, Nurture Wellness and Massage, Second Alarm Brewhouse and Harbor Holistic Healing.

On November 12, we held a fun ribbon-cutting celebrating Pic-N-Paint Pottery’s 15 years of business success. The event was held at its Pasadena location, which boasts an incredible array of pottery to paint. Pic-N-Paint has holiday pottery, which can be the perfect gift, personalized by you! Be sure to visit for a great family or girls’ night out, or even time for you.

This month’s topic for Learn and Lead was Time Blocking 101. The session was led by Doris Williams of the Williams Home Team of Taylor Properties. We learned how to prioritize tasks and allocate time to make each day productive, something especially important at this time of year. Note: our meetings are always open to the public, so please join us if you see a topic of interest.

Our general membership luncheon was to be held in-person at Hellas Restaurant and Lounge in Millersville, and we converted it to an online event due to the announcement the day before about the rise in cases. We did not want to cancel on the restaurant, so we switched to carryout, and it was wonderful. The meals were ample and delicious, with generous sides and dessert. Hellas did a fantastic job in accommodating this last-minute change and we thank the staff for their hard work.

Our restaurant community is really struggling due to the restrictions. If you have scheduled a banquet or catered affair, please consider the carryout option. Guests are more than willing to pick up their meals, and you are supporting our food service businesses. When you cancel at the last minute, you are leaving the restaurant with food that it has ordered specifically for you, food that may not be able to sell, and the restaurant stands to lose thousands of dollars.

Again, it is so important to emphasize Buy Local or Bye Local. We urge you to check out our local businesses first for products, services and gift ideas. You will be pleased with the wonderful and unique selections offered, and you are supporting your local businesses that give us so much! You can get gift cards from just about everywhere.

We are so fortunate to have great entertainment venues that are COVID safe. EscapeTime, The Axe House — Annapolis, Severna Park Lanes, Severna Park Golf Center, The Blended Essentials, and Pic-N-Paint Pottery are all family friendly and fun! Please visit them as they are taking the utmost precautions to sanitize and ensure that their venues are safe.

We are very excited to announce our Trick or Tree at the Chamber event, to be held on Friday, December 11, from 5:00pm to 6:30pm at the chamber. The address is 1 Holly Avenue, Severna Park. We will have resource officers helping at the crosswalks, and people are urged to park and walk over to Holly Avenue. Instead of a tree lighting and performances where people gather, the tree will be lit already.

Our Grinch will provide the tricks, and Santa and the elves will provide the treats. Adults will get goodie bags filled with coupons and promotional items from our local businesses, and the kids will get candy. Many thanks to our sponsors; Chick-fil-A of Severna Park, Steak ‘n Shake of Millersville, Minuteman Press of Crofton, Mathnasium, and Citizens for Heather Bagnall, and the businesses that donated the great items.

As we anticipate the end of this challenging year, we want the community to know that our businesses are working in overdrive with very little to sustain them. In true entrepreneurial spirit, they have quickly adjusted to new ways of doing business, implementing technology in a matter of days as opposed to months. Their creativity is astounding, and they are persevering as best as possible. Amid all their losses, they continue to support local nonprofits, raising money for food banks and homeless shelters. Please support them by shopping local, eating local and giving local! We would love to have you join us, even as a member of the community. You can find out more at www.gspacc.com or email me at ceo@gspacc.com and call 410-647-3900.