A Message From GMBA President,

Kevin Warhurst, Vice President, Merrifield Garden Center

Hello and Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a happy holiday season, and that you’re all looking forward to a safe and prosperous 2022. Now that we’ve turned the page to a new year, it’s time to look ahead at the challenges and opportunities that lie before us.

For the challenges, those seem to be pretty evident. The Omicron variant is certainly making its presence known, as Covid-19 is now spreading faster than ever. And since public health and safety is our highest priority, this means we unfortunately have to hold off on having in-person gatherings that we had hoped to kick off in January or February.

Not having in-person events makes it hard on organizations such as ours, since we’re not able to get together and network, collaborate, and share ideas and information. That makes it difficult to build that sense of community that associations such as ours thrive on. But where there are challenges, there are also opportunities.

For the GMBA, we look forward to the opportunity to push our way through these challenges, just as we have done for the past two years of the pandemic. And although we can’t meet just yet, we look forward to meeting virtually in February for our annual State of the Union address, and the opportunity to hear from some great speakers (self not included).

In this virtual meeting, we will briefly reflect on some of the highlights of the past year, and update our membership on current happenings in the GMBA, and share our plans for the year ahead. This meeting will include a guest speaker (or speakers) who will bring us interesting and informative content that you won’t want to miss. So stay tuned for more information, which will be coming soon.

I wish you all much success in 2022, and look forward to working with all of you to strengthen our organization and continue to advocate on behalf of this great community we all love. Until then, stay safe, and we’ll see you (virtually) in February and kick off the 38th year of the Greater Merrifield Business Association. 

 

Please join us for the 2022 GMBA State of the Union hosted by GMBA President, Kevin Warhurst of Merrifield Garden Center.

Please RSVP here to receive the zoom link.

GMBA is on the lookout for interesting speakers and meeting/mixer hosts for 2022 (both virtual and in-person).

We also want to make sure we are helping you celebrate your business openings and milestones!

If you are interested in speaking, hosting or having a ribbon cutting, or other celebration coming up, please contact Peggy at director@greatermerrifield.org.

Please join GMBA Executive Director, Peggy James, for a hands-on training discussing all of the ways to get the best marketing benefits out of your GMBA membership!

For the full agenda and to register, click here!

Join Food For Others in a fun and friendly outdoor competition to benefit food insecure families in Northern Virginia. The outing will be held at the award-winning International Country Club in Fairfax. 100% of proceeds will help Food for Others feed over 2,600 families and 2,400 schoolchildren each week. We have an ambitious goal to raise $50,000. We'll have a shotgun start at 12 PM and will be providing lunch and dinner for our golfers. 

Please reach out to hwilson@foodforothers.org if you'd like to learn more!