Congratulations to all the winners in the 2024 CHQ Chamber Holiday Window Decorating Contest! We had two different levels of winners this year: the top three businesses that got the most votes, and visitors who played along and voted also had a chance to win ShopLocalCHQ Gift Cards.

Winning First Place was Heart of the Game, 4 West Main Street, Fredonia. The Second-Place window was Bett’s Insurance, 27 East Main Street, Westfield. Third Place goes to West Main Mercantile, 17-19 West Main Street, Falconer. All three businesses will receive marketing packages from the CHQ Chamber that include a variety of opportunities including ads in the CHQ Chamber 2025 Membership Handbook, banner ads on www.chqchamber.org and ad placement on the CHQ Chamber Connections weekly email newsletter. Those packages are valued at $1,000, $700, and $400 respectively.

In addition, the customers who played along had chances to enter our drawings for ShopLocalCHQ Gift Cards. The system was purposely designed to encourage consumers to visit local businesses and earn points for each check-in. With 50 points they were entered into a drawing for a $500 ShopLocalCHQ Gift Card. With 40 points they were entered into a drawing for a $300 ShopLocalCHQ Gift Card, and with 20 points they were entered into a drawing for one of two $100 ShopLocalCHQ Gift Cards.

The winner of the $500 gift card was Pauline Masters of Irving. She was excited to pick up her prize and told us, “We had so much fun with this! My daughter and I drove all over the county looking at the windows so we could check in and vote. We really enjoyed it!”

The $300 gift card was won by Conor Hudson of Jamestown. The two $100 gift cards were won by Amanda Ritchie of Westfield and Deborah Ferrer of Fredonia.

Overall, 45 businesses participated including locations in Ashville, Dunkirk, Falconer, Fredonia, Jamestown, Lakewood, Randolph, Silver Creek, and Westfield. There were 783 check ins, covering all the participating businesses, and 137 voters who completed the poll to select the winning windows.

Thanks to all who took part in the 2024 CHQ Chamber Holiday Window Decorating Contest!

CHQ CHAMBER SEEKS INNOVATION TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESS

The mission of the CHQ Chamber is to build vital connections, provide professional resources, and champion our local businesses in Chautauqua County. To fulfill that mission, we undertake a number of projects and programs each year – all with an eye on how we work in the best interests of our local businesses.

Sometimes we try new things. Sometimes they are a huge and immediate hit – such as the ShopLocalCHQ Gift Card which has grown substantially since its launch in 2017. Sometimes new things take a little longer to work their way into general use.

This year, the CHQ Chamber sought and received a $25,000 Springboard grant to help us unveil a new-to-us platform designed to encourage people to visit local businesses. Bandwango is a cutting-edge technical system that gamifies locally produced trails, creating online passes that allow players to participate and earn points as they go. The flexibility in the system is outstanding, and it even allows for coupon creation for each local business, as well as the option for paid passes where warranted.

When we first looked at the Bandwango platform our reaction was, “How cool is that? We can use this to help drive customers to our local businesses.” There is a great deal of flexibility in the system to create different types of online game passes, and in turn, to provide some meaningful data about building traffic to local businesses over the long haul.

So far, we have tried out the platform for the Holiday Window Decorating Contest and the Westfield-Mayville Cookie Tour. In fact, we agreed to be a guinea pig for the Bandwango rollout of it’s new polling system for the Window Decorating Contest.

If there’s one common thread we have heard from many small local businesses in recent years it is how hard it is to reach customers. As an organization we are committed to both using traditional media and resources and searching for new resources to increase not just our own customer base, but to help our members build their support as well. New and innovative systems can bring new attention to the small businesses that are the fabric of our community.

We see enormous potential in the Bandwango platform and are committed to giving it a full trial over the next couple of years. We invite our local businesses to join us in this quest as we imagine new ways to build community both in person and online.

We invite your feedback. If your business took part in our first trial runs through the Holiday Window Decorating Contest, or through the Westfield-Mayville Cookie Tour, please let us know how we can improve. You can email our Director of Marketing and Communications, Sheila Webster at swebster@chqchamber.org. Thank you for your participation and your input.