Perfecting Your Pitch 2019 Annual Meeting Recap:
Presented by:
The 2019 Annual Meeting was held on Friday, October 25 at the Hilton Garden Inn. Over 350 members attended and helped celebrate another incredible year. SYNERGY HomeCare was named the 2019 Small Business of the Year. Gaye and Jim Aaberg opened the Central Illinois branch of SYNERGY HomeCare, a non-medical home care agency, in 2013 after spending years caring for their own loved ones. SYNERGY’s purpose is to provide personal care and companionship for the elderly, those recovering from illness, surgery, childbirth and the disabled. Their services range from companionship and transportation to homemaker and personal care. Throughout the last four years, the Central Illinois branch of SYNERGY HomeCare has seen continued growth and expansion. Each year, their total number of clients and billable hours have increased significantly – in 2018, the experienced a 20 percent increase in their total number of clients and an 83 percent increase in total billable hours. The staff at SYNERGY is heavily involved in groups and events regarding the aging community of Champaign-Urbana. They are involved with the Champaign County Committee on Aging, the Alzheimer’s Walk, the Senior Advocates Fun 1K Walk/Run and Champaign County Fair’s Senior Day. In addition, they regularly participate in Coffee Connection’s Senior Advocate Meetings and speak to the Urbana Adult Education CNA course. They are also active Chamber members. FY20 board chair Mike Estes, introduced this year’s video, Perfecting Your Pitch, which used an audition format to showcase what the Chamber has and will be working on. The video highlighted a number of Chamber programs including the recently launched CEO roundtable, iRead • iCount, the Healthcare Careers Program and the Business Advisors Council. The Chamber will continue to focus on serving it’s members so that Champaign County will have an economically thriving community. The meeting concluded with comedian, educator and writer Tim Clue who used a number of ineractive games to showcase the power of connection and collaboration. Thank you to all of our sponsors and to all of those who attended this year’s Annual Meeting. Once again, the Chamber Annual Meeting was a success.
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