Your November Business Connection

November Business Connection

Board of Directors

Chair of the Board

*Robert Ferrini

McGowanPRO

Past Chair of the Board

*Alisia St. Florian

Murphy, Hesse, Toomey & Lehane

Treasurer

*James Donellon

Gray, Gray & Gray, LLP

General Counsel

*Thomas Flaherty

Bacon Flaherty LLC

President/CEO

*Thomas O'Rourke

Neponset River Regional Chamber

Anthony Brown

Dedham Savings

Mary Chetwynd

Rockland Trust

Todd J. Chipman, MST, CPA

John T. Chipman & Co., CPAs

Peter Ellis

ServPro of Norwood and West Roxbury

Steve Forrest

CertainTeed

Rhonda Kale

Bank of Canton

*Michael Kennedy

Norwood Bank

Paul Kouri

Keller Williams

Jon Levy

American Holt Corporation

Michelle Llorett

Fairfield Inn & Suites

Mark LoVuolo

Liberty Mutual Insurance

Ashley Mansfield

Dedham High School

*Tim McCabe

The League School

Julie Molloy

Compass Real Estate

Sal Perla

Norwood Hospital

Cynthia Peterson

Brigham and Women's/Mass General Health Care Center

Christa Seychew

Legacy Place

*Member of the Executive Committee

From the President: More Tools for Small Business

The Chamber continues to add resources for our members to help navigate their way through these challenging times.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced the launch of its comprehensive new Save Small Business resource center—including federal, state, and local financial assistance programs, emergency financial relief resources, grant programs and more—to help provide the assistance and guidance small businesses need right now amid Congressional inaction to provide additional, much-needed financial relief to Main Street. Click here to view the new Save Small Business resource center.

SHOP SMALL

During this difficult time, let’s make sure we are all patronizing our local small businesses like never before. Join us in shopping small every day. We can all help small businesses by:

Shopping at a new local retailer
Trying out a new neighborhood restaurant
Finding unique holiday gifts from local artisans and makers
Purchasing a gift card from a small business in the area
Supporting small, local service providers

Find local businesses on the Chamber website or utilize the state's new resource MyLocalMA to keep supporting our member businesses.

MOTT and the Massachusetts Downtown Initiative will present a virtual “My Local MA” campaign workshop November 2, 10:00-11:30 am. The workshop will provide an overview of the statewide campaign, and provide detailed examples for local involvement, focusing on hyperlocal personalization using the lovemylocalMA.com website and toolkit materials. Register here.

Tom O'Rourke, CCE

President and CEO

COVID-19 and Reopening Resources

Be sure to check out our webpage for a complete list of resources for your business during the COVID-19 crisis.

Welcome New Members

Member to Member Promotion

Chamber Members in the News

Staples Studio Norwood re-opened in June with all new healthy and safe protocols for our coworking members. To celebrate, we welcome all Neponset River Chamber members to check us out with a FREE WEEK of coworking and one hour of FREE PODCASTING! The Studio features flexible open seat coworking and meeting rooms and our new podcast studio features soundproofing and top of the line recording equipment to help create a high quality podcast. Come check us out!

Rockland Trust has announced their ranking as the #1 bank in Massachusetts according to Forbes’ 2020 World’s Best Banks list. This award is based on a consumer opinion-driven list of banks around the world. Rockland Trust was also ranked second among banks listed in New England.

“We’re thankful for our customers who helped us earn this recognition. At Rockland Trust, we believe that each relationship matters. No matter large or small, old or new, we are committed to serving every customer with care and respect.” said Christopher Oddleifson, Rockland Trust CEO. “This award is a testament to the strong relationships our incredible team of colleagues builds with our customers and communities.”

Whether you want to ride inside or outside, support a rider or create a Peloton riding group, please support the school in this fun virtual challenge!

You can choose how you ride, where you ride, and when you ride. Just post pictures from your ride on social media with the hashtag #LEAGUESTRONG.

All proceeds will help improve learning opportunities for our students by helping us purchase new equipment for our Outdoor Learning Space.

After 18 years, Terry Schneider is stepping down as Executive Director of the Stoughton Chamber of Commerce. Terry and his wife Joanne have been fixtures at the Chamber for many years. We wish them the best in their next chapter.

Thank You! The following members have renewed their membership with the NRR Chamber

We understand the difficulties that many of our members are dealing with at this time. We know that many may not be able to renew their memberships until the situation improves.

We are grateful to those who are in a position to support the Chamber, including the following who have recently renewed:

Affordable Cleaning Solutions, Inc.

B.J. Supply, Inc.

Castle Electric, Inc.

Neponset River House

Norwood Space Center

Plainridge Park Casino

Performegy, LLC

Prize Possessions

SEED Corporation

Steel Art Corporation

Sherwin Williams Dedham

Wluka Real Estate Corp.

Paid Family and Medical Leave (PFML) update

Massachusetts’ Paid Family and Medical Leave program (PFML) is here.

If your business or nonprofit employs anyone, you should be PFML ready. And that means that you should be withholding from your employees and making quarterly payments to the state. Current contributions are due October 31.

No change in contribution or weekly benefits for 2021.

The following rates will remain in effect for calendar year 2021:

The contribution rate will remain at .75%.
Please visit our website for a detailed explanation on calculating contributions.
The maximum weekly benefit amount will remain at $850 per week.

The Department of Family and Medical Leave (DFML) will not make adjustments to the contribution rate or the maximum weekly benefit amount until next October 2021.

Benefits start January 2021.

Starting in January 2021, Massachusetts employees will be able to apply for PFML benefits. You should have received emails from DFML asking you to update your leave administrator contact information by October 31, 2020. It’s important that we collect this information now as we build out our contact list of people who will manage leave requests for your organization. Incorrect contact information may delay approvals and bring unnecessary stress and anxiety to your employees.

If you still have questions about the law, our employer toolkit can help.