PBA Meeting - "Unshackle Upstate" Initiative
Wednesday, 03/05/2008, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Sandy Parker, President and CEO of the Rochester Business Alliance discusses the "Unshackle Upstate" Initiative that will bring sustained economic growth to Western New York.

Penfield Country Club
Members: $15; Guests and Residents: $20

Penfield Rotary Breakfast
Tuesday, 03/11/2008, 7:15 - 8:15 am
Breakfast at NapaGino's Restaurant featuring Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn.

For more information, contact:
Linda Kohl, Penfield Rotary President-Elect. Phone: (585) 381-4510.

Are You Worried About Your Aging Parent?
Tuesday, 03/11/2008
An open forum night, come an talk about your concerns. Led by Jennifer Meagher.

For more information, contact:
Atria Senior Living Penfield, 2006 Five Mile Line Road, Penfield, NY 14526. Phone: (585) 381-0282.

Singles Golf of Rochester Happy Hour
Friday, 03/28/2008
Dinner follows.

For more information, contact:
Shadow Lake Golf & Racquet Club, 1850 Five Mile Line Road, Penfield, NY 14526. Phone: (585) 234-9267.

Check out our Community Calendar!
Please visit the PBA website to view a complete list of Penfield events.

The State of the Town Address a Success!

We had a great turn out for the State of the Town Address on February 13, 2008 featuring Penfield Town Supervisor George Wiedemer.

The Supervisor detailed the Town's accomplishments for 2007, listed the new businesses that were moving to Penfield, and offered insight into the exciting new revitalization projects in store for 2008.

Sam Delucia, President of the PBA, made important announcements, introduced the new board members, distributed advance copies of the PBA Business Directories, and honored Cricket on the Hearth as our first PBA business of the month.

PBA Business Directory Now Appearing in Mailboxes Throughout Penfield!

Over 15,000 directories were mailed to residents and businesses throughout Penfield this past week. In addition, you can pick up a copy at the Penfield Public Library and Town Hall. We’ll also have a supply at each of our PBA events for distribution.

This new, full color directory includes valuable information about the Penfield Business Association and its members, the Penfield and Webster School Districts, and the Town of Penfield. Each PBA member business is prominently listed with address, phone number and Web site. Several members took advantage of advertising in the directory.

Shepherd Home Spring Gala Seeks Donations

The annual Spring Gala dinner and auction to benefit the Shepherd Home will be held April 26th at the Penfield Country Club. The home is seeking gift certificates, services and items for the auctions to be held in conjunction with the dinner. A live auction will be part of the dinner event and an online auction will be conducted through www.shepherdhome.cmarket.com from 3/24/08 through 4/20/08. The Shepherd Home is also soliciting advertising space in the gala program and will soon be selling dinner tickets for the event.

Shepherd Home (www.shepherdhome.org) is a volunteer-staffed facility providing comfort and compassionate care to members of our community with life-limiting illnesses. Shepherd Home has served 57 residents and their families since it first opened in October 2005.

Businesses may contact Dennis Shew at 248-1040, or the Shepherd Home directly at 381-0890.

Seeking Participants for PBA's Annual Penfield in Bloom

Soon we will be initiating our annual Penfield in Bloom event. Penfield in Bloom is a community project that the PBA works in conjunction with the Town of Penfield to maintain roughly 15 small gardens at major intersections within the Town. Members and volunteers are encouraged to revitalize and maintain these gardens. Each garden includes a sign noting the PBA and the volunteer organization or group of people chartered to maintain the garden.

The PBA Board of Directors is currently seeking volunteers as well as a PBA member(s) to chair and manage the event. If you are interested in participating in the Penfield in Bloom event, please contact us as soon as possible. Thank you.

Reduced Democrat & Chronicle Advertising Rates Available For PBA Members!

The PBA has developed a valuable reduced rate-advertising program for members and we want your feedback. Here are the details of the program:

The PBA will run one full page, full color ad in the Our Towns section (Northeast Area) of the D&C on the last Wednesday of the month. In addition, the same page will appear in the Neighbors section on Friday of that same week. This advertising page will be an opportunity for members to place their full color ad on the page for only $150 per week! This means your ad will appear twice that week, reaching over 80,000 potential residents and businesses throughout the Northeast area, in full color, for just $150.

The same full color ad running one time in the D&C would cost roughly $301.50 for a non-contract advertiser. Those with a contract would have to run the ad for four consecutive weeks at a cost of $199 per ad. $796.00 total.

Each individual ad size is 3.375” x 4.25” and will only appear with other PBA members.

Please email diane@threshcreative.com and let her know if you would be interested in this program. We’ll only proceed if we find that members would like to participate so your opinion is very valuable. We think this is a great opportunity for our members. What do you think?

Advertise in the Monthly eBusiness Wire

Include your ad on the right side of this e-Newsletter! For only $25 per month, we will include your logo/ad and a link to your website in our monthly eBusiness Wire that is emailed to over 200 PBA members.

Buy 2 months and get one free! Pay only $50 for 3 months of advertising!

The eBusiness Wire is emailed on the 1st of each month. Payment must be received by the 21st of the month prior to your ad's inclusion. Logos/ads must be submitted as JPGs, GIFs, or PNGs and must be no larger than 150 pixels wide x 150 pixels high. Feel free to contact us with any additional questions.

Submit Your Business Profiles for the Website

With enough member interest, we are hoping to add individualized, company profile pages that will link directly from your company listing displayed on the Member Directory list page. At your earliest convenience, please send us the following information:

• Business Name(s)
• Contact Information (Address, Phone, Email, URL, etc…)
• Name(s) of Principals/Individuals
• In Business Since (year)
• PBA Member Since (year)
• Type of Business/Profession
• Description (anything you want – history, profile, services, hours of operation, etc…)
• Promotions (public, consumer-related)
• PBA Business-to-Business Discounts (please try to come up with something)
• Business Logo (optional)
• One (1) Photograph (optional)

Submissions should be emailed as a Word document (.DOC) or a text file (.TXT). All images should be in the form of a .JPG, .GIF, or .PNG (maximum size: 150 x 150 pixels). PLEASE NOTE – Your submissions will not be proof-read or edited, so make sure they are correct prior to submission.

Hunt ERA to Host Spring Family Fun Day and Scavenger Hunt in April

For the previous two years, the Webster and Penfield Branches of Hunt ERA have hosted an Easter Egg Hunt for the community at Webster Park. The event, bringing hundreds of children and their parents from the local community, featured a fantastic Easter Egg Hunt with over 6,000 candy filled eggs. Hunt ERA provided food, prizes and entertainment from Rosco the Clown and Mike Dedee, Magician, as well as a raffle with the proceeds going to charity.

This year Hunt ERA is warming up this community event by moving it in to Spring and hosting a Spring Family Fun Day and Scavenger Hunt. The event is tentatively scheduled for the end of April. There will be free food, fun, games and prizes for kids of all ages.

Hunt ERA is a family owned real estate corporation with its’ home office in Buffalo, New York. Hunt ERA was founded in 1911 and boasts an array of real estate, home ownership and mortgage services. Hunt ERA expanded into Rochester in 2002 by the acquiring of the Judy Columbus brokerage and has since opened a total of seven local branches. With twenty-four total branches, covering the Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse areas, and the new additions of offices in Arizona and Florida, Hunt ERA is the fastest growing real estate corporation in Western New York, with a team of over 900 agents.

Hunt ERA is committed to giving back to the community. In addition to the tremendously successful Easter Egg Hunts, Hunt ERA was a proud sponsor and participant at the 2007 Penfield Community Festival held at Heritage Park at the Four Corners in Penfield last September. This year Hunt ERA continues to play an integral role in this festival with Tracey Dedee, Real Estate Agent from the Webster Branch, Vice-chairing the planning for the 2008 Penfield Community Festival scheduled for August 16th at Heritage Park.

For additional information on any of the events or to be a sponsor and/or participant in the 2008 Penfield Community Festival, please feel free to contact Tracey Dedee at (585) 217-7420.

PHS Varsity Baseball – Will Work For Trip
February - April 2008

Each spring the Penfield High School Varsity Baseball Team goes down to South Carolina to play in the Hawaiian Tropics Baseball tournament. Players have determined to raise funds by working for their trip and are challenging local businesses to help support them in their efforts.

For more information, contact:
Jason Kanzler and Brian Bezek.

Pride of Penfield Photo Contest

Submit your best photographs of Penfield by March 12th to enter the Pride of Penfield Photo Contest. Winners will be selected in April.

For more information, contact:
The Penfield Recreation Department.

Smart Portfolio Moves for Your Retirement Years
by Curt Regruit - Edward Jones

For most of your working years, your investment strategy, by and large, has probably revolved around achieving sufficient growth to help you meet your long-term goals, such as college for your kids and a comfortable retirement. But once you have retired, you can’t just sit back and put your investment portfolio on “autopilot.”

What types of portfolio moves should you make as a retiree? Here are a few possibilities:

• Generate your own paycheck. When you’re retired, you can collect Social Security and receive distributions from your 401(k) and IRA. But you’ll also probably need to generate some income from your investment portfolio. Consequently, you’ll need to own the appropriate mix of investments, including stocks that have the potential to pay dividends, bonds and certificates of deposit (CDs).

• Protect against inflation. Even if you use some of your investments to provide an income stream, you can’t ignore the need for growth — because you’ll have to contend with inflation. Consider this: Everything you buy today will cost about twice as much in 25 years, assuming a 3 percent annual inflation rate. In other words, if you need $75,000 a year to retire comfortably now, you’ll need about $150,000 per year in 25 years to maintain your standard of living. And with advances in medical treatments leading to longer life spans, it’s entirely possible that you could spend 25 years — or more — in retirement. To fight inflation, then, you will need at least some exposure to stocks, which offer the potential to help you keep pace with inflation. While it’s true that by investing in stocks, you can lose some, or all, of your principal, you may be able to reduce your risk level by buying quality stocks and holding them for the long term. You can also help protect yourself against inflation through other investments. Your financial advisor can help you choose the ones that are appropriate for your needs.

• Leave a legacy. As you may know, the estate tax laws are in flux. In 2008, the estate tax exemption amount — the amount you can pass to your heirs free of estate taxes — is $2 million. This figure rises to $3.5 million in 2009. Then in 2010, the estate tax disappears —for one year only. And unless Congress changes the laws before then, in 2011 the exemption amount will revert to $1 million, with a maximum estate tax rate of 55 percent.

How can you help your family cope with a potential estate tax burden? You can make some “tactical” moves, such as rolling your 401(k) into an IRA, which, when passed on to your heirs, could be “stretched” for years to reduce the tax bite. You can also reduce the size of your taxable estate by making gifts to family members and charitable organizations.

Clearly, there are many portfolio considerations for retirees. So when you’re nearing retirement, start preparing. By making the right moves, you can help make your “golden years” considerably brighter.

*Edward Jones does not offer tax or legal advice. Consult with a competent tax or legal advisor about your specific situation.

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Email us your articles for inclusion in The eBusiness Wire.

Please welcome our newest PBA members:

Which one of the following PBA initiatives do you think would best benefit your business?