2010. The Next Step.

By Jeff Curtis, Director Orange Downtown Alliance | Posted: Tuesday, January 12, 2010

"Do all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you have."
Nkosi Johnson

What a year 2009 was for the ODA. We were running. Organizing. Cleaning. Doing. Getting done. It was a great year and one for which we are grateful. Our committees, for the most part, are staffed and organized. We are generously supported by an active, engaged Board of Directors and membership. The year-end reports have been submitted. Members have been thanked. The Farmers Market has grown. We put on some fun events and are planning our strategy for this new year. We've made friends. We've partnered with the town and county. In retrospect it's kind of amazing, this past year.

And I was wondering what makes these kinds of good things happen. It called to mind something I recovered from my notes when I was a Chamber of Commerce exec in Texas. About three years ago I attended a conference where Julien Patterson was the guest speaker. Patterson is Founder and Chairman of OMNIPLEX World Services Corporation. OMNIPLEX boasts over $100 million in annual revenue and employs approximately 3,500 employees worldwide.He was also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Virginia State Chamber of Commerce in 2007.

Patterson said, "There are three ways people react to change: some people fear change. Change brings out the worst in them: anxiety, resistance, negativity. There are those who hope for change. For them things might get better. They are usually non-committal observers. Finally, there are the few who embrace change. They are confident in themselves, accept ideas and new methods and are able to adjust." It seems to me that the Orange Downtown Alliance is populated by the latter group: those who embrace change. Those people are making our good things happen. They are investing both time, talent and money. Fundamentally the ODA projects a sense of urgency, of difference, of attitude and as such has been able to serve as a compass for those talents and personalities just waiting to find their magnetic attraction.

It would be safe to say that this organization could easily adopt the quote above as our mantra for 2010: "To do all we can with what we have, in the time we have, in the place we are."

Here's to us Orange.

Happy New Year!