No wonder the Chamber of Commerce was able to pack an upper room of the DoubleTree by Hilton this morning for what may sound like an exercise in dryness:
Installation of officers, especially popular new Chair Colette Moore.
CEO Steve Rose, who enjoyed a terrific outing, invited the most significant personalities in Culver City to the 8 o’clock breakfast. They came.
They turned out because the Chamber of Commerce, far from a stodgy group of gray-hairs, has become a fun spot. Who knew?
If you are a business leader, officially participating in Chamber activities is a pragmatic matter – informal breakfasts, dinners, mixers where you can pitch your enterprise to prospective clients and network until you are hoarse.
As the Jenny Craig of the commerce universe, Culver City’s Chamber of Commerce strives to strike a weighty balance between two rudimentary business principles: Connecting with like persons and letting down their hair, at least for the lucky hirsute-minded.
Which leads a tale-teller into Mr. Rose’s sweet role in this morning’s snappy one-hour show that was master of ceremonied by the one of the keenest young minds in Sacramento, a Chamber favorite, Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City/Crenshaw District). (Entertainment types say stages await the young man in the unlikely event he tires of politics.)
Mr. Rose, in his second century as Chamber chief, is the second most recognizable figure in Culver City.
He could repeat himself more frequently than the mother of 20 children. He needed a new schtick before he handed out the President’s award. Dipping into his coat pocket, he produced it.
He asked all hundred persons in the intensely diverse room to stand.
Mr. Rose would pose 10 questions. When the answer was “no,” a person was to sit.
- Are you a Chamber member? (Numerous persons sat.)
- Are you a member of the Chamber’s board? (Most survivors sat.)
- (Here came the first bold-faced clue.) Are you or your spouse over 6 feet tall?
- Do you own your own business?
- Do you give your opinions to me, whether solicited or not?
- Are your politics on the right or on the left on every issue?
- Are you interested in Culver City elections?
- Do you live in Carlson Park?
- Are you follically challenged? a topic with which Mr. Rose is intimately familiar.
- Are you term-limited on the Board of Directors?
With that, Goran Eriksson and Scott Wyant, the two tallest, baldest candidates for the April 12 City Council election strode to the Rose-colored podium to accept rewards for nine lively seasons as leaders on the Board.
On the day that Kevin Lachoff stepped down as chair of the Chamber, Richard Marcus, who long ago recovered from a bout of abbreviated shyness, popularly was selected as the Member of the Year.
