Richard W. Wise produces successful Lenox Caroling Festival

Despite the cold rain and perhaps one of the worst weather days in Berkshire County, Richard W. Wise proved by putting one’s shoulder to the grind wheel, one can make a difference.

There were 2,400 votes cast for the $2,000 prize that went to Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts (MCLA) and an estimated 350 people at the closing ceremony.

Just think: if there were snow, the singers, along with an outpouring of people double or triple the size, would have been on-site.

State Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli (D-Lenox), the award presenter, brought forth the kind of “stand-up” person for such an affair.

The Lenox Caroling Festival was a success. Many parties lent their individual and collective efforts to ensure its success.

One of the drawbacks was that the retail shops were not open to accommodate our guests.

The festival, through Mr. Wise, was able to bring people into town. At the least, we as a community and a potential member of the Lenox Chamber of Commerce should encourage businesses to remain open to greet our visitors and show them their items for sale.

Taking a page from the Nantucket Stroll: Each shopkeeper should have offered a warm drink -tea, coffee and/or cocoa – to the participants as well as visitors. Goal: Make each one feel welcome to Lenox.

Just to be clear, the selectmen, in their wisdom to help bring forth visitors, should be spending taxpayers’ dollars not on an outside vendor like the Berkshire Visitors Bureau, but on creating an enterprise fund that matches local initiatives with a source of revenue.

Let’s help our own before we try to help the BVB, which is, in part, state-funded. Not only are we looking to build tourism, we are also trying to build an icon under the creation of “Lenoxology,” which will create a image that may result in people moving into the community.

The selectmen in their wisdom should set goals and objectives to be met locally. That may be the development of the Niagara Mill, Lenox Dale into a business center, the expansion of home offices within the town and a review of a bike/walking path that will make Lenox proud.

Also, our goal for the local Lenox Chamber of Commerce is to remain independent and representative of local businesses within the community. The chamber needs to bring in more businesses along with an intern or two to answer the phone, do filing and integrate business development in the community.

Every time I go to a chamber event, it looks like an outsider agency and their representatives are looking to “cherry pick” the locals. There is nothing wrong with being an independent agency. If there were going to be a coordination of activity among the independent chambers, it would be better to hook up with Lee and Stockbridge, and bring West Stockbridge along.

The Berkshire Chamber of Commerce has grabbed the central and the northern chambers, with the exception of the Williamstown Chamber of Commerce, formally called the Board of Trade. Meanwhile, the Great Barrington Chamber of Commerce serves those communities in the southern district.

Posted by George C. Jordan III on December 13, 2012. Filed under Editorials,Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry