Can’t blame your tools, but you can credit them

My first week on the job was a bit strange for me. I remember it was during the baseball season where the Gonzales Apaches were hosting a tournament, right at the beginning of the season. My editor at the time wasn’t too confident in my photo-taking skills — frankly, I wasn’t either — because I had no experience in taking pictures. Well that day I took a pretty good one of a man sliding into second while the shortstop jumped over him to try to make a play on the ball. My editor was relieved that I wasn’t completely terrible and from then on, I slowly but surely improved.

One day I was looking at a copy of one of the bigger metro newspapers and saw a sports photo. I thought to myself, “I can do this,” and I shared that sentiment with the higher ups. I told them that if given the tools, I can get pretty good at this photo thing and sure enough I did just that soon after they gave me a better camera.

I’m not one to brag, especially in front of people I don’t know, but if you didn’t check out our Facebook post weeks ago, or our story inside the paper a few weeks ago, the Inquirer won some awards, including one for sports photo. That’s right. A guy with no experience taking pictures years ago got to take home a fancy certificate due to his fancy updated camera. Whether I won that award because I’m awesome at my job (at least that’s something each and every one of you should be telling my bosses, thank you very much) or maybe it was because I got a good camera. I think it was a combination of both. It’s a bit of me being better at my job while also possessing the tools necessary to do that job well.

If you don’t know by now, the Gonzales Chamber of Commerce got themselves some fancier awards than mine. A few weeks ago, Executive Director of the Chamber of Commerce Daisy Scheske Freeman traveled to League City where local chambers from across the state convened for the Texas Chamber of Commerce Executives (TCCE) Annual Excellence Awards.

Freeman brought back a wealth of knowledge from the convention as well as awards for communications excellence. The Gonzales Chamber took first in Social Media Campaigns, first in Chamber Marketing Campaigns, third in Newsletter, third in Website and third in Chamber membership brochure. This is actually the fourth year in a row the chamber received first in Social Media Campaigns.

This is incredible work for a staff — including both the Come and Take It Board as well as the chamber board — that’s always short-handed and in need of more support, whether that’s monetarily or physically through volunteers.

I’ll be honest. I don’t know the entire inner workings of the relationships between a city or county and its chamber of commerce, let alone our chamber and its relationship to the county and the city. But what I do know is support is needed, whether that’s through man power (volunteers!) or money. Every year we talk about budget cuts and I feel like every year I hear about how the chamber is going to have to work extra hard to put out great events such as Come and Take It with even less money.

I understand that tough decisions need to be made during budget season. But when you short change events that bring in money to not only the city, but to other nonprofits, you end up costing yourself in the long run.

The staff and various boards along with the current crop of volunteers at the chamber of commerce are good at their job. I am good at my job. But you shouldn’t bank on us overachieving with subpar “tools.” That old phrase “a poor craftsman blames his tools” can be interpreted in different ways. Sure, don’t blame your tools for a poor job. But you sure as heck can give props when you’re given great tools.

The support I get makes me better at my job, without question. My award for sports photos proves just that since it’s my first one of its kind. Don’t you think we could apply the same logic to supporting the chamber? They’ve done awesome things without the amount of support they deserve, just imagine how great they can be with it.