October Newsletter

There is nothing more beautiful than the

autumn sunlight and colors of Belhaven

reflecting on our beautiful harbor. Visiting

cruising boaters are in daily for a night or two

before continuing their winding journey south

for the winter. The sounds and smells of

festivals and fire pits linger in the air.

As we settle into month three of our leadership

transition at the Belhaven Chamber, our team is

energized and busy with assignments. Our

functional framework is through committees.

The committees are:

• Community Outreach

• Economic Development

• Events

• Governmental Affairs

• Advocacy

• Partnerships

• Marketing

• Membership

• Treasury

Most Chambers try to cover special events,

entertainment, economic development, local

marketing and managed growth in-house. It is a

tall order in a small Chamber. Belhaven,

however, is very fortunate to have a successful

Festivals Committee and an established

Belhaven 136, who focus on Small Town Main

Street, music events and our recent ICW

Festival. We are so appreciative of the work

they do as we all work together to improve

quality of life and build new streams of visitors

and revenue in our community.

A top priority of this Chamber is addressing our

ongoing wind driven flooding issues which have

a tremendous effect on economic prosperity,

investment potential and future growth and

retention. We have worked to build partnerships

between local government, state and federal

elected officials and agencies to support our

municipality as they work through the

challenges of implementing a successful flood

mitigation plan and project.

In April we hosted our new NC representative

Darren Armstrong to familiarize him with our

issue and our needs before he goes to Raleigh.

We brought in U S Senator Ted Budd’s

representative, John Tayloe, in July who has

continued to be extremely helpful partner on our

Floodgate project. Laurie Buckhout met with us

in August and made very helpful connections

on the state level where our flood mitigation

project will be sourced, and Don Davis, current

NC House of Representatives for the NC First

District, and via redistricting, is running now for

our representative in Beaufort County, met with

our Belhaven municipal team on October 3 rd at

our Chamber and immediately wired us in to his

DC office for federal focus and assistance on

our flood project. Our mission is to develop a

strong, effective and sustainable partnership

network.

We invite all who wish to join this team and our

mission to let us know. It is our future.