The Greater Boerne Chamber of Commerce represents more than a thousand members and we are the 5th largest Chamber in the San Antonio area. Every one of those members thanks the citizens of Kendall County for voting the GBCC the best Organization in Kendall County. We interpret this honor to mean that in our eightieth year of excellence, your Chamber is still headed in the right direction.
The mission of the Greater Boerne Chamber of Commerce is to develop leadership and partnerships to promote prosperity and the quality of life in the community. That is our purpose. That is what we do.
We create and provide opportunities for business owners and their key employees to hone their leadership skills. Some members do this by participating in Leadership Boerne, a Chamber program that has developed hundreds of leaders who now serve the community as volunteers or members of boards of directors for area non-profits. Others serve on the Chamber’s Board, or on committees or Councils that develop programs that benefit the whole community. Just one example of this is the Chamber’s ACE program, fostered by the Chamber’s Business Education Council and spearheaded by Lynn Heckler. This program brings adult education programs physically to Boerne for the first time, and adults in the community could learn to use Microsoft Word or Excel with a proficiency that would get them hired in a paying job.
We work together in partnerships with other groups to benefit the community and the quality of our lives. Most of the members of our Chamber live here and work here. When the City of Boerne adopted a battalion of soldiers at Camp Bullis and wanted to hold a special event to show those soldiers how much we cared for them, the City turned to the Chamber and asked us to be their partner and to coordinate the event. Businessmen and women from across the area, from San Antonio to Kerrville, answered our call to action and donated food, associated items, their time and their money, to provide a warm Boerne welcome to those troops and together we put on a great community-wide event just last month.
Another Chamber partnership with City and County officials resulted in the implementation of the Kendall County Economic Development Corporation which has brought a myriad of new opportunities to the area. A long term partnership with the UTSA Small Business Development Center has helped hundreds of businesses refine their business plans and now includes a series of monthly Lunchbox Lessons that offer help to local businesses as they review, redefine and re-evaluate everything from their target markets to their strategic plans and their pricing.
Our Chamber of Commerce means business. We will always work on behalf of our members to foster leadership and partnerships that promote prosperity and the quality of life for everyone in our community.