Out and About
Thank you to The Cutting Board who catered the delicious dinner, and Six Piece Suits – who were missing a member of the band – but still sounded awesome. Also, thank you to all the sponsors which are listed on the full-page ad in this issue. I want to say a special thank you to our team at Navarre Press, Sandpaper Marketing and Santa Rosa Press Gazette who put together a history book that turned out beautifully and was very popular at the event. We have a lot more history to add, but we have a good start. A huge shoutout to Jonathan Crider, Ph.D. who spoke about the beginnings of history which dated back to the 1600s and ended with the interesting story of our founder, Guy Wyman. Jonathan was also responsible for extending the invitation to the great granddaughters of Wyman, Mallory and Emily, who were in attendance. Pam Brannon from the former Navarre News was in attendance as well as our county commissioner, Ray Eddington and the chairman of the Santa Rosa County Board of Commissioners, Kerry Smith and his wife. Phil Babiak of Century 21, Island View Realty, was there with his wife, Linda; Bart Pullum and his wife Rebecca; Betty and Greg Fountain; and many more legends of Navarre’s more recent history were also there. Cindy Davidson of Centennial Bank told me later that her mom was pictured in the 1940s class photo from Holley School that was in the history book. There will be many more stories to come from this event and the team at Navarre Press cannot wait to write them. A fun tidbit that was read at the event was from a Santa Rosa County Commission meeting from 1925 and reads as follows: “On motion made, seconded and unanimously carried, it was decided that the county do not help Miss Daisy Keyser pay for a set of false teeth as the county is now helping her all it can.” I just love that.
To clarify, the Centennial Ball was not a Navarre Beach Area Chamber of Commerce event. The chamber had absolutely nothing to do with the event, and they wanted it that way. I didn’t ask why, but I believe they have all they can handle without putting on the centennial festivities. They did give the committee $1,000 in sponsorship, but other than that – nothing. The board even asked the director to stop coming to the meetings. The centennial committee was asked to join the chamber to get an e-blast to go out and use the building for meetings. I ran into a few people that are part of a local organization (that will currently go un-named) who did not attend the event because they thought it was a chamber event and had taken issue with the chamber in the past over what they perceived to be pettiness by the chamber. However, they decided to be petty and not answer my text messages and not attend the event even after I explained it was not a chamber event. This tit-for-tat behavior is not productive to say the least. This group wants to be a leader in our community – but they definitely did not demonstrate leadership with their childish behavior. They really, really missed a HUGE opportunity – and I can’t emphasize that enough. And I let them know – of course.
In case there are people out there that don’t know how to solve problems such as the above…here is how you do it: When you feel that you have been slighted or something is unfair, you go to the person and talk to them. If that does not resolve the problem, go to their boss or board of directors and talk to them and explain your position. If that does not resolve the issue, you go to the next level of leadership, which in the chamber’s case is the membership, and that wouldn’t be on social media. If that doesn’t work, you can go to the Florida Chamber of Commerce which the chamber is a member of and see if they have a grievance committee. If that doesn’t work, you are on your own or you may have to compromise because sometimes you just don’t get your way, or you won’t see eye to eye on everything. Agreeing to disagree is a resolution. What you don’t do is go around town disparaging a group because they won’t do what you want them to do or hurt your organization’s cause by holding grudges.
Quote of the week: Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love. Martin Luther King, Jr.