FOCUS ON THE GOOD THINGS

It was suppose to snow this morning so that it was “iffy” if I was going to the State of City address by Mayor of America’s Vancouver, Royce Pollard. Since we live in a temperate climate, I am not the owner of snow tires. In this area, when a snowflake falls things are immediately cancelled so I have never even entertained the idea of buying snow tires.

Snow was melting when I got up, so read my paper, and then got dressed for the event where the who’s who of Vancouver shows up to hear how our city is doing. My hope was that I didn’t have to go there and hear how bad things are – we get enough of that every place we go.

As I suspected, the Hilton Heritage Ballroom was alive with people when I arrived. There were hugs and greetings from people I only see at this event. The politicians were there, photographers, city employees and average citizens all coming together to hear and learn about how our city is doing.

A video was shown with actors portraying what our city was like in 1989. As my daughter would say “It was right on spot”. Along side of the picture/dialogue were facts and figures to show how far we have come in 10 years. Let’s just day we could not help but feel good.

The Mayor ended his speech with the announcement SEH American (wafer tech company) is going to expand its operation in Vancouver, Washington. This will mean approximately 1,000 new jobs in our community. In addition, SEH also gave us a gift of $1 million to build a Japanese Garden on our Clark College Community Campus.

Optimism was the word of the day. Lots of great one-on-one networking happened between people. Our Chief Ranger of Fort Vancouver National Park told a group of us the Park had over 890,000 visitors last year – one the highest attendance rates of any of our National Parks in the United States.

Make the effort to attend your community-wide events so you can learn and connect with your fellow citizens. Feeling really good about the future.

BUSINESS COMMUNICATION TIP:

When you attend a community event, make an effort to introduce people you work with and believe in to others. Watch how quickly they return the favor.