NEWS RELEASE

Venture Center Has Busy First Month

Venture Center classes and activities have kept the facility busy since its open house on September 27th. Since that time, the Venture Center has hosted computer classes for over 50 people including Quickbooks I & II, Social Networking for Business and Social Networking for Fun. Other activities include Leading Locally classes, a Highway 14 meeting, a CCC class in Customer Service, 2010 Hand Cornhusking committee meetings, Chamber board meetings as well as Merrick Foundation board and committee meetings.

“We anticipated a significant number of responses to computer classes based on our early sign-up activities” said Merrick Foundation Executive Director Chuck Griffith.

“We did not anticipate several of our classes being overbooked, and we’ll be working to get additional trainers to handle the response”, he continued. The Quickbooks I and II classes have been exceptionally well received. We’re working to get additional classes available for those on a waiting list.

Most classes have been 100% grant funded with the Business Plan Basics Class funded at 75% ($19 fee). Business Plan Basics is a 5 week class that provides instruction in marketing, customer relations, financial management, advertising, promotion and goal setting. The fall session of 5 classes began on October 27th with 12 enrollees. Instructional staff has been primarily provided by REAP (Rural Enterprise Assistance Program).

The Central City Area Chamber helped to coordinate two all-day customer service trainings for area business people. The Chamber worked with Tanya Babel of Central Community College in Columbus to provide the class. Grant funding subsidized tuition costs for class participants.

Pending finding available instructors, we plan on scheduling a Photoshop class and additional Quickbooks classes, stated Griffith. We plan on providing “Intro to Computer” classes in late 2009 or early 2010. We’re happy to respond to the needs of our Merrick County residents.

Merrick Foundation has grant funding for classes in 2009 through 2010. Several classes will be repeated in 2010. If you’d like to request, teach or enroll in a class, call Merrick Foundation at 946-3707.