HometownGeorgetown.com

I’m a member of the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce here in Georgetown, Texas, and a big fan. Our Chamber may be the most active in Central Texas, second in size only to Austin, and is probably in the running for most active in the state. When I first moved to town and started my business as a real estate agent, I joined the Chamber at the recommendation of my office manager. I had never owned my own business before, so it was a whole new world for me. The staff at the Chamber made me feel immediately welcome, and the Chamber membership proved to be enthusiastic and welcoming. We all work to lift each other up. There’s a true spirit of camaraderie at Chamber events.

The best money I’ve spent on my businesses - first real estate, then freelance writing - has been my Chamber membership. I love attending the monthly Business Network Lunch. My experience in Leadership Georgetown was beyond fabulous. Heck, I even joined the Chamber’s summer bowling league at Mel’s Lone Star Lanes! (Team Eat, Drink, and Be Looney.) Whatever I’ve given to the Chamber has come back a hundredfold in connections, education, and honest to goodness money in my pocket.

Now I can make my status as a Chamber fan official. The Chamber has launched a Facebook page. I’m a fan, and I’d encourage all other Chamber members to become fans, as well.

Hill Country Magazine is a high quality quarterly filled with wonderful stories and photos from right here in the Texas Hill Country. (Georgetown is, in my opinion, at the northeasternmost point of the Hill Country. In fact, I would say the portion of our town that lies east of I-35 is outside of the Hill Country. East of 35, we have beautiful flat farmland. West, we have those gorgeous rolling hills.) From what I hear, Georgetown will be featured in Texas Hill Country Magazine in their Spring 2009 issue. You can buy it at the Hill Country Bookstore on the square here in Georgetown, a wonderful little bookshop that has a great selection of reading material. (The bookstore itself was featured in Community Impact just over a year ago.)

Georgetown will soon have a 24-hour fitness facility. Anytime Fitness, which already has branches in Cedar Park and Leander, will open within the next two weeks. They’ll be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including weekends and holidays. (Oh no! No more excuses!) Each of their treadmills has its own TV, which sounds great to me. Exercise can be tedious, but if you can do it while you’re distracting your brain with mindless fluff, it’s not so bad.

If you’d like more information on membership, give them a call at 863-9990. They’ll be located right across the street from Catfish Parlour on Williams Drive.

I don’t usually write about stores and events south of the Georgetown/Round Rock border, but I had to make an exception in this case because I’m so proud of my friend, Sue Gordon, owner of Classy Concepts Design. Sue is my customer service idol. Seriously. She used to work for the custom builder who built our home. We lived overseas while it was being built, and Sue uploaded thousands of pictures so we could watch the progress online. I’m not exaggerating. We really do have more than a thousand pictures of our house under construction. Sue struck out on her own years ago, establishing Classy Concepts in Round Rock. Her business was featured this week in the Round Rock Leader.

Classy Concepts rents formal wear, including wedding dresses, bridesmaid dresses, and even flower girl dresses. (You can rent prom dresses, too, and they have tuxedos for the menfolk.) For a fraction of the cost, you can wear a designer wedding gown. They’ll even do alterations!

The other arm of their business is window coverings. We purchased all of our custom blinds from Classy Concepts. Sue has an amazing portfolio of curtains and other window treatments that she has designed and sewn, including some in the house that won the People’s Choice Award in a recent Parade of Homes.

Just Right Homes, a local company that installs the coolest central vacuum system I’ve ever heard of, could see a bump in orders after the November 24 episode of Little People, Big World on TLC. Ron Marullo, President of Just Right Homes, told me that one of the central vac products he distributes is going to be installed in the house on the reality show. What’s so cool about this system is that it features retractable hoses at each vacuum port throughout the house, so there’s no need to lug a hose from room to room. The system can be retrofitted into existing homes, or installed during the construction process.

Just Right Homes is based out of Cedar Park, TX and serves the greater Austin area. They also install home theatres and surround sound.

Recently, I happened upon a hidden gem here in Georgetown, a secret street with several wonderful businesses on it. This magical street is called Industrial Park Circle. (For my regular readers, I don’t know whether this street has any “aka’s” or not.) My husband needed a hard-to-find rechargeable battery, so I brought him to Battery Wholesale yesterday. They had to special order our battery, so we assumed it would be at least a week before we heard from them. Would you believe they called us today? We picked up our battery just 24 hours after placing the order. I found the same battery online, but for 50% more than we paid right here in Georgetown. Excellent customer service, reasonable price, and you keep your money circulating locally. What could be better than that?

The other day as I left HEB, I briefly considered renting a movie. I hadn’t caught Sex and the City in the theatres because I felt asking my husband to go would be cruel and unusual, so I decided to wait until it was out on video. And now it was out on video, but I felt conflicted because renting it seemed so frivolous, in light of all the economic woes on the news. (Catholics don’t have a monopoly on guilt.) I don’t think I would’ve felt as conflicted if it had been a movie that Larry would enjoy, but renting this movie would mean spending $5 on myself. No one else would benefit from this, which meant I had no way of justifying the expense as doing something nice for someone else.

Until.

I realized that our local economy depends on us, each one of us. The owners and employees of the establishments in Georgetown need us to loosen our grips on our wallets. I know the news is scary, but try to remember that news is national, and much of it doesn’t apply to our little Central Texas microcosm. We enjoy sound fundamentals in our local economy, but that will only continue if we all make a conscious effort to support local businesses. Mel Pendland, president of our Chamber of Commerce, said it beautifully in an open letter to the community at large. We cannot let our fear become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So chin up. Get out there today and make a point of spending some money right here in Georgetown. Buy yourself a new outfit or a new stereo. Go out to eat with a couple of friends.

Just don’t rent Sex and the City. It wasn’t worth $5.