I joined the Aptos Chamber of Commerce a few months ago, at the beginning of the summer. Little did I know they have a summer hiatus – so the months went by with no meetings to go to. I’d long wanted to go to an Aptos Chamber meeting – for years I’d kicked around the idea of getting up at 7:30 and going to check it out.

Today though was the first meeting of the new Chamber “season” which apparently runs from September to May, so today was my First Aptos Chamber meeting. This meeting’s main topic was a farewell to Aptos/La Selva Fire Chief Jeff Terpstra. Many community leaders, including State Senator Mark Stone, and representatives from the offices of Sam Farr, Zach Friend, and Bill Monning came to honor chief Terpstra.

Chief Terpstra himself gave a funny – and dare I say it – heart-warming speech (I guess you’d call it that) which was well received by everyone in attendance. Lots of laughs and smiles. I don’t personally know chief Terpstra but I kind of felt like I did, a bit, after he’d finished talking – which is an amazing feat. Few speakers can generate that kind of connection with a crowd in such a short period of time.

A lot of the meeting was given over to individual attendees to introduce themselves and say whatever they wanted. For whatever reason, I’ve never particularly enjoyed these kind of round-robin introductions – especially when it came for me to pipe up. This one though was actually pretty cool – a lot of amiable, witty folks at that Aptos Chamber meeting!

When it was my turn to stand up, I introduced myself, and made an announcement about this web site, AptosCommunityNews.org, and how I’m offering free business profiles. Hopefully we’ll be seeing some more business profiles up here soon! Also, I mentioned that I am a new member of the Mar Vista Elementary Parent’s Club, as I have a son who has just entered kindergarten there – and that in that capacity, I will be contacting Aptos Chamber members to see if they would be interested in sponsoring a classroom for our Read-a-Thon, to be held November 4th-14th.

I met some great folks there at the Aptos Chamber meeting, and I am genuinely looking forward to getting to know more members and participating in the coming months and years.