Business

Has the arrival of spring given you inspiration to start or grow your business? Community Capital of Vermont is a nonprofit, small business lender with loans ranging in size from $1,000 to $100,000. CCVT specializes in providing loans to business owners who lack the collateral or credit history to qualify for traditional bank loans.

Loan proceeds can be used for working capital, to purchase equipment, vehicle or inventory, or to refinance debt.

Love to shop local?  Love all-natural products? Want skin and eco-friendly soaps, cleansers, and cleaners? Want to help a Brattleboro small business succeed?

Scrub Your Soul has been making and selling hand crafted soap and home products for over 10 years. I’d love to expand further (and even approach the co-op about carrying my products) but I need to make sure I can meet demand before I do that.

The Brattleboro Food Coop Shareholder Forum is postponed due to weather.

NEW DATE:  February 22, 2015 at 5:00-7:00PM in the Community Room at the Coop.  

Please join us!  Come to the Forum – Contribute, learn, share – be part of our amazing Cooperative.

Sadly, yet another fine downtown business is closing. MILAGROS restaurant’s last day will be February 13th. This restaurant was really fun to go to; delicious, inexpensive authentic food, great atmosphere, colorful space. Most of all it was a welcome change from the overwhelming amount of pizza and Chinese food places. This is tough town to try to keep a business with reasonable prices afloat. One more big, empty storefront on Main Street. It’s a shame to see them close.

Express Fluency- a language school offering innovative courses in VT, MA, ME, and NY, has opened a new classroom at 73 Main Street in Brattleboro.

Express Fluency offers a new approach to learning a language which has helped thousands of people, including those who were previously unsuccessful language students, gain fluency in Spanish quickly and easily. French and Mandarin classes will be added in 2015.

We plan to be open tomorrow and processing transactions as we normally would. We will be closely monitoring the storm and will update our website and our Facebook and Twitter pages with any changes to those plans.

Please be safe and remember if you can’t get to us, you can always use your online banking, mobile banking, and telephone banking. If you are on foot in downtown and conditions permit, please come to our front yard and make us your best snow person or snow animal!

A total of $68,000 in prizes is being offered for innovative business models and plans in the .

The competition is presented in collaboration by Strolling of the Heifers and the .  It is largely funded through the , created through the settlement agreement between Vermont Yankee and the state of Vermont.

Additional competition funding came from the  and the .  is providing partnership support.

When photographer Kelly Fletcher set out to capture images in and around Brattleboro, Vt., to help promote Brattleboro Savings & Loan’s new Local Rewards checking account, she expected beautiful New England vistas and great personal moments of people enjoying their community.

Indeed, the project brought her to various locations in Brattleboro, from eateries to retail establishments to rooftops, where she captured scenic panoramas. But Fletcher’s favorite stop was Miller Farm, an organic milk farm in Vernon, Vt., with 160 cows-in-residence owned and operated by Pete and Angela Miller, Art and Judy Miller, and Keith and Tina Franklin and their families.

New checking account option benefits customers and area businesses

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. – A dinner on the house, a bag of groceries, a frame for a new art print, or a gift basket brimming with Vermont-made products are just a few of the extras Brattleboro Savings & Loan customers could receive from BSL’s new Local Rewards program.

Local Rewards checking account holders who meet three qualifiers – 20 or more debit card transactions, use of electronic statements, and at least one direct deposit or withdrawal – will now benefit from up to a 1.25% annual percentage yield (APY), and also be entered to win gift cards from a variety of local vendors.

The Future of the Putney Co-op is in our hands. An important member discussion on the direction we as a community would like to see our Co-op evolve toward.

Thursday, December 11th at 7:00 PM, Putney Library

Find out about major changes that have been proposed to our bylaws, and what they would mean for our co-op and our community.

Holiday shopping brings an extended market day starting this Saturday at the Brattleboro Winter Farmer’s Market. 

As usual the market will open at 10 am and stay open until 3 pm for an extra hour of holiday shopping. 

Make it your first stop on Saturday for fresh farm products, local foods, gifts and basics like soap…we even have homemade laundry detergent!

Stacey Conn has joined Strolling of the Heifers as its new general manager, it was announced by Orly Munzing, Stroll founder and executive director.

Conn earned a Master’s of Business Administration degree from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College in 2014. As part of her MBA program, she visited Ghana to teach entrepreneurship skills to high school students and to prepare them for the Babson Cup, a regional business plan competition. 

She also served for a year as a Babson Board Fellow — a non-voting board member for the non-profit organization Partners for Youth with Disabilities, and created a strategic road map.

Dan Normandeau, President of Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation announced today that the Board has selected Adam Grinold of Wilmington as the next Executive Director. The position has been vacant since May. Stephan Morse has served as Interim Director and conducted the search.

In making this announcement Normandeau said, “We had some great candidates to choose from and I am excited about our decision. I look forward to working with Adam in the upcoming year as we strive to improve the regional economy through working with our existing businesses, helping to create new business ventures and attracting people and businesses who want to relocate to our region.”

We were happy to see that a new craft store had opened up on Main Street in between Mocha Joe’s and Sam’s. The name of this new business is The Crafty Cauldron, which would make you think it’s a Halloween store, but you’d be wrong. The store has a large assortment of different unique and homemade crafts plus natural skin care products. Some of the prices for the different crafts were affordable for those who have a minimal amount to spend.

The two owners are from Massachusetts and they have a long commute to get to Brattleboro. They are extremely nice and understanding.

MLS data for Windham County shows median home prices during the first three-quarters of 2014 running 5.26% below median home prices for the same period a year ago.

National real estate and other economic indicators are mixed and increasingly volatile, with even a fragile recovery, uncertain. The National Association of Realtors® (NAR) reports that prices for existing homes nationwide rose by 4.8% in August compared with the previous year, despite the number of sales slipping by 1.8%.

2nd Annual CAREER EXPO & JOB FAIR:

Monday, Nov. 10, Brattleboro Union High School gymnasium

Top employers from tri-state area are coming together to raise awareness of career opportunities; will also recruit for specific job openings. Several schools, agencies also on hand to support job searches, training needs

Whether an experienced professional or a newcomer to the job market, all are welcome to stop by the Brattleboro Union High School gymnasium, Nov. 10, to learn how to advance your career in southeastern Vermont and in the greater tri-state area. More than 20 employers, along with several temporary staffing agencies, colleges, technical schools, and human service agencies, will be staffing informational tables as part of the Second Annual Career Expo & Job Fair organized by the Windham Workforce Investment Board.

The National Academy of Public Accounting Professionals (NAPAP) has named its 2014 “Top 10 Public Accounting Professionals” for Vermont. The award winners include:

• Jerry Bowin of McSoley McCoy in South Burlington
• Renee Bourget-Place of KPMG in Colchester
• John Davis of Davis & Hodgdon Associates in Williston
• James Donohue of Gallagher Flynn & Co. in South Burlington
• Christopher Goulette of A.M. Peisch & Co. in Saint Albans
• Marcia Merrill of Montgomery Merrill in Burlington
• John Meyer of Pieciak & Co. in Brattleboro

Join Amy Schram, Community Outreach Specialist for The Better Business Bureau, on Wednesday, September 17, at 7 PM, in the library’s meeting room for a program on Scams, Fraud & Identity Theft. 

The talk will  cover the most common tactics scam artists are using to obtain our personal information and steal our identities, the major Red Flags to watch out for, and the precautionary steps we can use to protect ourselves from falling victim to fraudulent activity.

Alex Gyori, a staple item at the Brattleboro Food Co-op for many years, has announced his intentions of retiring. The news comes in the latest issue of Food for Thought, the Co-op’s newsletter to shareholders.

He says in part, “In ten months, and the end of this fiscal year, I will be moving on to another phase of life after 33 years of service to the Co-op. This phase is often referred to as retirement, but I am hoping it will be a lot more than that – I still have plenty of energy and enthusiasm! Nevertheless, the Co-op will benefit from new directions and fresh eyes, so to speak.”

Community Appreciation Day Friday August 29th from 11am-1:30pm

Tomorrow is the big day! Stop by our Main Office for a veggie burger, hamburger, hot dog, or a fresh baked cookie from the Vermont Country Deli! 11am-1:30pm on the front lawn.

Please bring a cash or non-perishable donation for Load the Latchis and we will make sure it gets down to them for you. See you there!