AUBURN - For nearly 100 years, the Cayuga County Chamber of Commerce has had one single purpose: to help local businesses both large and small thrive.

“The chamber offers businesses the tools and services to succeed,” said Terri Brindenbecker, the chamber's executive director. “When a business is looking to locate, they look at the chamber to see if they are going to be successful in the community and if they will thrive and we offer them the tools to be able to do just that.”

For six years, a large part of that support has been the annual business expo, at the Holiday Inn.

“Originally it was for new members of the chamber,” Brindenbecker said. “It gave them the opportunity to meet fellow members and from there businesses could learn about each other and the products and services they offer.”

Whether a large or small, new or well established, the expo is still considered by many businesses to be the premiere opportunity to network.

“One of the big things is to get our name out there,” said Tony Franceschelli, vice president regional executive for Tompkins Trust Company. “We are still relatively new to the market. This gives us a chance to network with a lot of other companies. It has been very beneficial to us to get to meet these other businesses and network with them.”

The concept has grown over the years.

“It has grown more and more,” Brindenbecker said. “We get more and more businesses every year. It has become a very important event.”

Among the new businesses debuting at the expo was Burritt's Cafe of Weedsport that offers a wide variety of organic coffees as well as pastries made with safe sugar substitutes.

“We read about the chamber in the paper,” said Sherry Saben-Wolford, who along with her husband Darryl owns the cafe. “After the first six months we have settled in more and we could think more about doing things like this to let people know who we are and what we do. I think it is a wonderful thing to be a part of.”

This is an opportunity many businesses have jumped at as they try to establish themselves in the community through the chamber's help.

Jay and Jackie Scanlon, opened Smiley's Town and Country, a florist and gift shop, just five weeks ago. They've become members of the chamber.

“Our neighbor is a member of the chamber,” Jackie said. “He was telling us about the chamber and what a great event this was. We thought that joining and coming here to be part of the expo would be a great idea since we are so new in the community and it would give us a chance to show what we are about and meet other businesses and be able to get involved in the local business community.”

The chamber also unveiled its new Web site by member Coburn Design.

“The first site we had didn't have all the bells and whistles a site can have now,” Brindenbecker said. “We wanted to update it and make something that would really meet the needs of our members and give them the best site we could as people get more and more involved in the computer.”

Laura Coburn, Coburn Design's owner, said the site is an improvement.

“It was a real labor of love,” Coburn said. “We designed the site as a gift to the chamber and we wanted to be able to give them a Web site that was current and fresh and easy to update as new members joined and really have something that the chamber and its members could use.”