Ramlah's Blog: #3 - A busy second week!

5/5/2023

Ramlah at the Idaho State Capitol Rotunda

In Boise, there is a non-profit organization called CATCH which is working on providing a long-term solution to end homelessness in Treasury Valley. This organization is a member of the Boise Metro Chamber as well. They have a lofty mission to help homeless people through empowering those without housing, building collaborative partnership, and increasing public understanding to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring. CATCH just remodeled their office and now they have really nice and convenient spaces inside the office. Since CATCH is the Boise Metro Chamber’s member, I accompanied Ms. Sandy Anderson, V.P., Member Service, for the CATCH Inc Ribbon Cutting ceremony for their new office. Boise Mayor Ms. Lauren McLean also participated, and it was great to get the opportunity to meet the mayor. I believe CATCH will more smoothly achieve their mission in offering a new beginning to people experiencing homelessness to get back on their feet. Their mission is such a great one.

There were three ribbon cutting ceremonies during this week for organizations which are members of the Boise Metro Chamber, so besides CATCH, I also attended the other two, which were the Idaho Small Business Development Center and the grand opening for Idaho Nonprofit Center. The Idaho Small Business Development Center is an organization which empowers small business success by providing no-cost, confidential consulting and low-cost training to entrepreneurs throughout Idaho, with the mission of accelerating business success, and the Idaho Non-Profit Center represents the interests of the state’s 9,000+ registered nonprofit organizations. Their mission is to educate, advocate, and collaborate in support of stronger nonprofits. There are a huge number of registered nonprofit organization as partners of this center. Attending these ceremonies was a pretty open opportunity for me to connect with the important people in those organizations.

As part of working on developing my public speaking skill, I attended a Toastmasters meeting with Ms. Holly. Toastmasters International is a nonprofit educational organization that teaches public speaking and leadership skills through a worldwide network of clubs. It was interesting for me to attend this Toastmasters meeting, observing first, then starting practice next week.

Boise Metro Chamber regularly publishes and shares the projects, events, and happenings with the Boise business community. We have the Boise Metro Connection, a magazine-style newsletter which is produced and published every two months. The content inside the magazine features member highlights and accomplishments, Chamber initiatives and projects, upcoming events, and photos from across the Treasure Valley. We also have the Boise Valley Spotlight Magazine, which is an annual magazine with articles about the Boise Metro area which also includes a printed listing of every Boise Metro Chamber member (there are over 1,900 members). We have list of hotels in Boise as the spot for distribution of the Boise Valley Spotlight Magazine, thus the hotels visitors can access information about what we offer. We are working on distributing the Boise Spotlight Magazine too.

One unique part of the Boise Metro Chamber is that it has a program called the Boise Young Professionals (BYP). The BYP connect, empower and engage young professionals. The membership of Boise Young Professionals (BYP) is mainly comprised of the 21–40 year-old population, but is open to any “young thinking” or “young-at-heart” professional. BYP is a collective of entrepreneurs, nonprofit workers, bankers, attorneys, engineers and just about any profession in the surrounding Boise community. This week, BYP conducted an informational BYP 101 meeting in which they provided an overview of the programs and events put on by the BYP volunteer leadership and Boise Metro Chamber. Rachel Flachbart-Sladek, the Director of Development for the Idaho Association for the Education of Young Children, also serves as the BYP President. She made a presentation about Ready Idaho - Invest in Early Education (Why the program exists and how BYP propose to do that etc.). I see the program that she presented as an example of simple action that can be done in Timor-Leste’s education sector too.

It was really good for me to be able to participate the Leadership Boise grand finale at the Idaho State Historical Museum, with Ms. Sandy Anderson. Really, this event has added to my knowledge on how to become an adaptive leader. The young leaders presented their projects and the way they work to give positive impact to their community. As the was event sponsored by Wassmuth Center for Human Rights, the event included a visit to the Anne Frank Human Right Memorial. The mission of the Wassmuth Center for Human Rights is to promote respect for human dignity and diversity through education and to foster individual responsibility to work for justice and peace. This memorial was built as an effort to remind people that love, justice, respect, equality, kindness and compassion are actually everywhere.

Touring the Capitol with Ms. Holly Cook was really awesome. It was unexpected that I got an opportunity meet the Idaho State Controller, Mr. Brandon Woolf. I had a whole day agenda for participating the Idaho Travel Council. Several organizations gave presentations related to travel and tourism, including the Boise Metro Chamber (Visit Boise). The meeting agenda included lodging, tax collection, and agency of record updates, followed by grant updates, grant presentations and discussion. Ms. Carrie Westergard, the Executive Director of Visit Boise did a great presentation on the annual grant proposal to the Idaho Tourism Council, where the member of the councils gave her complement for the exceptional work of the Visit Boise team. Ms. Carrie also introduced me to the Idaho Tourism Council as a fellow from Timor-Leste for YSEALI PFP program who wants to learn about the various sectors that bring positive impact to the economic development, and I got warm welcome from the Council. Thank you very much, Ms. Carrie.

This is such a great week for me and I learned a lot. I now have a pretty clear idea of working on economic development.

Ramlah and Boise Mayor Lauren McLean

Ramlah and Idaho State Controller Brandon Woolf

Ramlah and Boise Metro Chamber members and ambassadors at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Idaho Small Business Development Center

Ramlah and Holly at a Toastmasters International meeting

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Ramlah's Blog - #2: First week review

5/2/2023

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I got a new experience last week by participating in the International Round Up (IRU) at the Riverside Hotel, which is organized by the state tourism office. Even though I only participated the last day of the IRU, I got the opportunity to see how Visit Boise pitched the city as a preferred tourism destination to several different groups. Nearly 60 organizations from around the Great American West region participated in the IRU, and 40 international and domestic buyers from more than 10 countries. When I accompanied Visit Boise (Lucas Gebhart) doing promotion to more than 30 travel agencies about Boise’s features. I got some good information about Boise, too. I was thinking of adding some of the places Lucas mentioned to my list of places to visit on weekends during my time in Boise.
Boise provides outdoor recreation, including great activities such as hiking and biking through its Greenbelt area. You can also visit the West part of Yellowstone as one awesome weekend destination. During the marketing presentations, I also heard a nice impression from a travel agent that Boise is a really nice place, beautiful and clean, also has many good restaurants and good choices for food. All the positive comments were really in tune with my personal impression about Boise.

I also had great experience participating at the Idaho Technology Council Capital Connect Conference at JUMP with Beth Ineck, Director of Economic Development of BEVP and Sierra White, Marketing and Events Manager of BVEP.
I heard many founders and CEOs share their experience and how they started and become successful in their business. Some advice that I caught for running the business were that it is important to get out and listen to the market and let the market be the guide. Besides that, it is good to be passionate about client success. For example, when preparing contracts, we try to shift and put ourselves in our clients’ shoes. In business, commitment to building an outstanding and engaging team and developing culture of continued innovation and improvement will contribute to the success.

All the inspiring, successful speakers led me to think about whether it is possible for me to start my own business and be as successful as they are, and thus contribute directly to improve the economy of my community. I am thinking about one kind of business in particular: provide lending to small businesses in my country, and helping them grow. It might be an idea for my project after this YSEALI PFP program, as I know this might be apart from my current job at the Ministry of Finance.

I went early to the office on Thursday morning, write my first blog, and sent it to Ms. Holly for reviewing before post it on Boise Metro Chamber website. Then, Thursday evening, Boise Metro Chamber hosted a Business After Hours Trade Show, and many organizations showed their products and services. It was an opportunity to have conversation with people too. I had chit-chat with two salespeople from a travel agency before I left the office. I just introduced myself and asked them a little bit about their product. It was nice to meet new people.

On Friday morning, I observed a Zoom call between Beth Ineck, BVEP’s Economic Development Director and Julian, the Economic Health Manager from City Fort Collins, Colorado, and Senoah, the Economic Health Director. This call was one way that BVEP coordinates with business and government partners. This Zoom call was a part of the City of Fort Collins’ preparation for their visit to Boise next week. They both introduced their organizations and talked about their advocacy, and Beth explained BVEP’s activities and how the organizations are alike. By the way, there is not much I can share about what I caught during the Zoom call, since I was just observing and I was trying to understand about this organization, while at the same time improving my English listening skill. All of the activities during my placement at the first week were pretty interesting, and hope to learn more interesting things in the next coming weeks.

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Ramlah's Blog: #1 - All about the YSEALI Fellowship

5/1/2023

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Hello Everyone,

My name is Ramlah. I am glad to be here in Boise for the YSEALI PFP program. YSEALI PFP stands for Young Southeast Asia Leaders Initiative Professional Fellows Program. The program is designed to promote mutual understanding, enhance leadership and professional skill, and build lasting and sustainable partnership between emerging leaders in Southeast Asia and the US. It such a pleasure to be placed at Boise Metro Chamber to learn about various activities to promote economic growth, and at the same time I can improving my English-speaking skills through day-to-day communication, as well as develop my public speaking skills which is very important for a leader.
Back home, I am Chief of Department for Coordination of Loan Mobilization Policy in Ministry of Finance, in Timor-Leste. My country, Timor-Leste, is a relatively new and small country, located between Indonesia and Australia. Holding this position gives me responsibility to be able to define management objectives and design Loan Mobilization Strategy. Through this great opportunity of fellowship in Boise Metro Chamber, I will experience and learn how Idaho’s largest business association promotes economic growth in Idaho and what kind of investments bring the most benefit to Idaho’s economy. All this will add to my knowledge and give me new ideas about economic diversification, which can help me to design strategies that contribute to better economy development in my country.

I've been here almost a week in Boise, Idaho. This city gives me a positive impression with the nice and friendly people. It is a beautiful, clean, and safe city. I am ready for my journey ahead at the Chamber and open to learn as much as I can to achieve my program goals and to share a little experience that I have with others. During my placement, I will be under the guidance of Ms. Holly Cook, the Public Relations Manager at the Boise Metro Chamber.