welcome once again to what's going on my name is delores me dell and i'm very pleased to have with me today rena basken from the belmont watertown local first what is that mike you ask well it's an organization that helps promote belmont and watertown local businesses the idea being to try and keep these activities among the community owners of businesses as much as possible and promote business in the area is that correct yes we are a five a one c three nonprofit organization we are focused on educating the public about the value of shopping at local specifically independent businesses because if there's if you keep your money local with businesses that are located in your state headquartered in your state and located in your community chances are they're owned by someone who lives there so you're helping your neighbors it's a unique business which which gives you the flavor of your town these businesses are so important to us it builds community if the best kind of social networking there is is to go out walk down the street go shopping you know you never know who you're going to meet and that the dollars that you spend in these store stays in the community because people who own a business will shop from one another they would get their marketing done by a local company they would have their printing done by a local company so it keeps the money circulating within the local economy and it benefits everyone and so what drove you to begin this kind of organization wow well my dad had a business for thirty years a small independent business he eventually had two locations but you know it's a lot of work and it's tough and in the fifty's way back when he would say to me all the malls are coming in and it's going to kill the downtown and i didn't quite understand back then what he was talking about but i see it now and specifically when i moved to watertown i had been living in brookline where there's you know the very vibrant coolidge corner and when i moved to watertown there were these little pockets of really unique stores and i just i just fell in love with it i just love it and i thought gosh it would be terrible you know to not have this and then you see that there is you know they're building more big box stores and they're you know and i began to think that it was really important to support the local businessmen and so how it started was basically it was an idea that i had being my father's daughter to put this out there and people in the community stepped up to the plate i  mean our local first how do i say this our local force is a little different than the others in the way we started i think we were not the idea didn't germinate among the businesses it germinated in the community wanting to keep the business is there and when we went to the business is this something that might interest you they were on board immediately so was not difficult to sell was not a difficult sell so we built community together i mean small independent local businesses are all about the customer relationship with the business and vice versa and they know you when you come in it's you know it's a community and we're not a community without them so here we are after three years and we started on november first two thousand and eleven one one eleven one eleven so business owners and that means not only stores but anybody who's has any kind of business i would imagine oh yes dental services all kinds of businesses in the in the in the communities in belmont and watertown can join this organization yes if you operate out of your house yes and what do they get for that just the fact that you're advertising their presence and promoting their visits well visits to their places or how what what's the benefit of belonging to the or goes there are many benefits  first of all we know that we're gearing towards small local independent businesses our membership fee is one hundred dollars a year and that won't break anybody that won't break anybody and we try to keep it there and we will keep it there  that if you choose to be a sponsoring member it's five hundred and we can talk about that a little bit later but for the hundred dollars what you're doing is you are supporting this organization which support the local businesses which supports the local economy that's number one that's a big benefit you have networking opportunities that we create so that you can network with other businesses who will do business with you and vice versa you have a link presence on our website the listing for your business on our website with a link to your website a description sort description of your business and you get a listing in the directory which which you have their day which is our annual  directory belmont watertown local first directory quite thick already yep folks that one has over one hundred businesses and i believe and you also get an opportunity to advertise for very very little in this book because we keep the prices really low for that as well but we really are geared toward the independent businesses and so that you can afford to do business and we can know that you're out there that the community knows we have ten thousand of those that are all over belmont watertown and all the businesses that are members have them the public places have them you know the libraries and town halls and and and all the new apartment buildings being built we drop them off there i think that's a great idea i think  it's quite exciting in addition to that members who don't have businesses are also able to contribute in some fashion they can become members for a fifty dollars fee a year is that correct yep fifty dollars you can become a community supporter it's not quite a membership in that you have a listing of the directory right but you're supporting the community you're invited to our events you can put your input into our meetings we are completely member driven all of our ideas come from our members and the things that we choose to do come from our members so the title of such a person would be a community associate is that correct yes trying to associate so what are your plans for going forward here oh we have so many ideas we would love to love to pursue there are many local firsts out there and we do communicate with each other it is a network really it's not you know any kind of organization per se but each one is independent we get ideas from each other of things that we could do we might want to do there are several ideas in the pipeline we want to have a networking event hopefully this coming month restaurant we've done that before at casa de pedro actually love us and it was really really fun and people just get together have drinks talked chat get to know each other great networking event we hope to have  festival of health providers and self care people coming together at one of our businesses to promote health well being and taking good care of yourself and  let people know what's out there in that realm each of our sectors you know could be the fitness sector or the salons beauty whatever reducing ethnic foods all of our restaurants we're going to try to do an event for each of them we also take part at the fair on the square in watertown every year we have a table there every place we go we mention our sponsors which i will talk to you about as well i don't know if this is the right time but i see by might as well yeah we have sponsors sponsoring members and those are five hundred dollars if you go to our website you will see that there is a picture at the top of the page that picture rotates and those are our sponsoring members we have watertown savings bank was one of our founding sponsors we have cambridge trust eastern bank real estate one  monique's bed and bath deluxe town diner and hop stars and those are our our sponsoring members we can also accept donations but if you have a sponsoring membership you also get all the benefits of you know actually being in the book so so in this fourth year is coming up right now no your big plan is to move forward with these things you just mentioned that some of them but we kind of take it as we go you know members come to the meetings or they e mail us and they say this is an idea i think we could do this and this would really help promote our sector and we'll put it together we decide about it at the meeting and then we move forward with it how often do you meet we have meetings the first monday of every month i guess you would call it a planning committee that kind of steers the the organization and at those they're different meetings that's really just a committee meeting but all members are invited to any steering committee meeting it's totally an open book here we want input we can't function without the input of our members the other things that we have coming up are planning for our next book our next directory this directory goes from july to july the next one we will start in january we start preparing for it and getting ads and finding out what people want to do how we want to format it so we really are pushing in our fourth year is going to be to get the word out there that this logo represents a place you really want to patronize because these people are independent that's how you know they are independent this is the don't have these logos yet but we hope that many many many or more will and that's really the main thing is to educate the public we want to promote locally owned independent businesses grow the local economy and for preserve the community i think it's a magnificent idea but to get a lead in view of the fact that  while we've seen what's happened to malls they have which i never liked anyway but still it drew so many people away from local businesses yeah and they're not doing so well so it seems like a prime opportunity to reinstill in people's minds the fact that supporting local businesses is a good idea plus it's fun it's it is much more fun instead it's best for the  four hundred and sixty eight dollars comes out of the minister pallet he's to support for every one thousand square feet of a big box kind of a store why that's so really the economically it makes the most sense to you to have the local sustainability and that's a big movement right now nationwide i think in the world right now the whole local movement is you know stay local because it produces pollution you know you don't travel so far to get to a mall there's not parking lots everywhere you know you go out on foot you meet people there's many many reasons why the whole local movement is really taking off now and local independent is what makes the difference the independent in there really makes a difference it's very interesting you know because as our society seems to become more alienated with all the technology that's developed it it's very refreshing i think to to feel  emphasis being placed on local engagement and recognition of what's there and is yours and it's in your best interest in ways that you can see a non si that's what it sounds like you're describing oh you know we're not we're not local only we're local first which means you know try to get it locally first you probably can you for pointing that out then how would you know where you could get it locally that's why we have the book and that's the education piece of it it also keeps money in your community because people who are local bank local the money stays i think it's almost a third more money stays in the community and circulates within the community if it's an independent and local kind of economy and that supports you you know your taxes other things are are stabilized in that and then you've been a member of the watertown community for how long eyes open folks these are the things to look yes and this hodges shift you're shopping this is a national campaign this is not specifically ours but shift your shopping to if you shift ten percent of your shopping makes a big difference  shopping bags everybody because you don't want to use those single use plastic ones we want to help out with that so we have these in fact this is for you oh my thank you i thought you'd never ask that's all right and look for the logo when you shop and shop your local independent businesses whether you see the logo or not ask them if they're independent so folks until next time with what's going on