Business

Six Windham County startup businesses will pitch their ideas to a “gang” of motorcycling investors, entrepreneurs and advisors who are stopping in Brattleboro on Tuesday, Aug. 4, at 10 a.m.

The event, which will take place at the Robert H. Gibson River Garden, is part of the second annual FreshTracks Road Pitch, a four-day motorcycle tour, in which the riders make stops in eight Vermont towns to listen to entrepreneurs pitching their business concepts.

The hosts of the Brattleboro stop are Strolling of the Heifers and Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, with sponsorship support from Marlboro College Graduate School. The pitch portion of the event, from 10 a.m. until about noon, is open to the public.

Thanks to a bill just passed by large majorities in both houses and signed by the governor, the  will soon be able to offer qualified first-time homebuyers a leg up in the form of a $5,000 “sleeping” loan.

The $5,000 assistance be in the form of a zero interest loan, with no payments. The loan is repaid when the homeowner sells their home or refinances.

In email correspondence with Brattleboro Buyer Brokerage, Seth Leonard, VHFA Homeownership Outreach Coordinator, wrote:

Love natural products?

Love hyper-local producers?

Love being squeeky clean?

The Brattleboro Food Co-op is now stocking Scrub Your Soul’s vegan castile soap in the bulk department.  Fill your own bottle to wash your body, your dishes, your hair, or anything that needs washing! Be sure to request scents you would like to see. 

As summer approaches, we at Brattleboro Savings & Loan will be showing our appreciation to you, for choosing us as your bank! From June 26^th through August 28^th, there will be a free event held every Friday here at our Main Office!

The events will generally take place on the front lawn, but may be moved to the community room if need be.

Calendar of events:

Awards were announced yesterday in the 2015 Windham Regional Business Planning Competition, a collaboration of Strolling of the Heifers and the Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation. A total of $64,000 in prize funds were given out: $10,000 to each of four first-place category winners, $3,000 each to the four second-place category winners, and $1,000 each to the 12 runners-up. Funding for the competitition came from a grant from the Windham County Economic Development program (the “Vermont Yankee settlement” fund), the Vermont Community Foundation and the Windham Foundation.

Here are the winners and runners-up, listed by category:

Energy Source makes BS&L the first completely solar-powered bank in Vermont

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. – Situated next to a classic red-clapboard barn on land farmed since the early 1800s, a new piece of Vermont history is taking shape: an award-winning community solar array poised to provide energy to both Brattleboro businesses and residents.

Contributing companies Soveren Solar, the Vermont Agricultural Business Education Center (VABEC), and Brattleboro Savings & Loan will ‘throw the switch’ on a 150kW, 64-rack array on Tuesday, June 23 at 5 p.m., which represents one of five Vermont Community Solar projects in the state. Gov. Peter Shumlin is scheduled to speak.

The downtown Brattleboro Farmers’ Market opens this Tuesday, June 16 from 10 to 2 and will run each Tuesday through the end of October. Walk down to the Whetstone Pathway across from the Brattleboro Co-op and enjoy fresh veggies, dairy and cut flowers straight from your local farms. You’ll also find lunch foods, including Anon’s Thai Cuisine. EBT and debit cards are welcome. Find us on Facebook for updates and vendor news.

The Brattleboro VFW Post #1034 will be closed due to construction Monday, June 8th.

Update…he is hoping to open later in the season.  Lots of hoops to jump through: negotiations with new landowner, issues with buried gas tanks next door, etc.  But he’s working on it.

They are giving away free food, drinks, & 99 cent car washes until 5:00 today. Owner Connie Burton says that small business costs are a factor. They are one of the most community-minded small businesses around! Get down there this afternoon and tell Connie and her employees how much you appreciate their business services and their service to the community!

Mr. G’s “Final Markdown” store in West Brattleboro has closed.  A note on the door says that the West Brattleboro store ceased operating on April 12, but that other store locations are still open.  The Mr. G’s in North Walpole, NH is probably the closest to Brattleboro.

Has the arrival of spring given you inspiration to start or grow your business? Community Capital of Vermont is a nonprofit, small business lender with loans ranging in size from $1,000 to $100,000. CCVT specializes in providing loans to business owners who lack the collateral or credit history to qualify for traditional bank loans.

Loan proceeds can be used for working capital, to purchase equipment, vehicle or inventory, or to refinance debt.

Love to shop local?  Love all-natural products? Want skin and eco-friendly soaps, cleansers, and cleaners? Want to help a Brattleboro small business succeed?

Scrub Your Soul has been making and selling hand crafted soap and home products for over 10 years. I’d love to expand further (and even approach the co-op about carrying my products) but I need to make sure I can meet demand before I do that.

The Brattleboro Food Coop Shareholder Forum is postponed due to weather.

NEW DATE:  February 22, 2015 at 5:00-7:00PM in the Community Room at the Coop.  

Please join us!  Come to the Forum – Contribute, learn, share – be part of our amazing Cooperative.

Sadly, yet another fine downtown business is closing. MILAGROS restaurant’s last day will be February 13th. This restaurant was really fun to go to; delicious, inexpensive authentic food, great atmosphere, colorful space. Most of all it was a welcome change from the overwhelming amount of pizza and Chinese food places. This is tough town to try to keep a business with reasonable prices afloat. One more big, empty storefront on Main Street. It’s a shame to see them close.

Express Fluency- a language school offering innovative courses in VT, MA, ME, and NY, has opened a new classroom at 73 Main Street in Brattleboro.

Express Fluency offers a new approach to learning a language which has helped thousands of people, including those who were previously unsuccessful language students, gain fluency in Spanish quickly and easily. French and Mandarin classes will be added in 2015.

We plan to be open tomorrow and processing transactions as we normally would. We will be closely monitoring the storm and will update our website and our Facebook and Twitter pages with any changes to those plans.

Please be safe and remember if you can’t get to us, you can always use your online banking, mobile banking, and telephone banking. If you are on foot in downtown and conditions permit, please come to our front yard and make us your best snow person or snow animal!

A total of $68,000 in prizes is being offered for innovative business models and plans in the .

The competition is presented in collaboration by Strolling of the Heifers and the .  It is largely funded through the , created through the settlement agreement between Vermont Yankee and the state of Vermont.

Additional competition funding came from the  and the .  is providing partnership support.

When photographer Kelly Fletcher set out to capture images in and around Brattleboro, Vt., to help promote Brattleboro Savings & Loan’s new Local Rewards checking account, she expected beautiful New England vistas and great personal moments of people enjoying their community.

Indeed, the project brought her to various locations in Brattleboro, from eateries to retail establishments to rooftops, where she captured scenic panoramas. But Fletcher’s favorite stop was Miller Farm, an organic milk farm in Vernon, Vt., with 160 cows-in-residence owned and operated by Pete and Angela Miller, Art and Judy Miller, and Keith and Tina Franklin and their families.

New checking account option benefits customers and area businesses

BRATTLEBORO, Vt. – A dinner on the house, a bag of groceries, a frame for a new art print, or a gift basket brimming with Vermont-made products are just a few of the extras Brattleboro Savings & Loan customers could receive from BSL’s new Local Rewards program.

Local Rewards checking account holders who meet three qualifiers – 20 or more debit card transactions, use of electronic statements, and at least one direct deposit or withdrawal – will now benefit from up to a 1.25% annual percentage yield (APY), and also be entered to win gift cards from a variety of local vendors.