What are these crazy photos about? I recently had the opportunity to represent SOLV in a Rock Paper Scissors tournament with the Meridian Chamber of Commerce. I was on a team competing to raise funds for charity, and even though we didn't win, it was a great experience!
The tournament was a lot of fun. There were 32 different businesses that participated. The Meridian Chamber of Commerce Team played for the Meridian Chamber College Scholarship Fund.
Overall the event raised $16,000 that was awarded to three winners to donate to their charity of choice. The first place winner got $10,000. Second got $4,000 and third got $2,000. Unfortunately our team didn't win, but, we did pretty well.
So a little backstory, I've never done a Rock Paper Scissors Tournament in my entire life. I didn't even know there was such a thing until this opportunity came up. It really is teams playing Rock Paper Scissors against each other to raise money for charity.
And you might think it's all just luck, but there was actually a strategy involved! I learned that from Connie Miller, who is a well-known business woman here in the community. She recently retired, but before that she has been the president of Icon Credit Union and Horizon Credit Union. She has a strategy about rock, paper scissors, as she has done this several times. During her retirement party, there were a hundred people that played and she won based on the strategy.
So pressure was on for Eric Gomez to perform! And I won the first two rounds. I made it to the semi-finals in my bracket. Yes, this was for charity, but let's face it: I have a competitive streak. I like to win.
The gal that beat me was from Empire Title. She was a real go-getter and she ended up in third place. I knew that if anybody beat me, they would probably be on the podium! I say that in jest, but it was a lot of fun. Connie taught us a few things and you know, there is luck involved, but her strategy did work. The first two rounds I have to say, I followed it and it did work, until the other gal beat me.
This event is run by First Federal Bank. It started in the Magic Valley in Twin Falls. Last year they had about a thousand people!
This was the first year for the Treasure Valley. We had a couple hundred of people attending in addition to the teams, and we imagine it's going to grow bigger and bigger every year.
Everybody dressed up. It was a pre-Halloween theme, so all the teams had costumes. We were called the Chambers Scissor Hands and I was Eric Scissorhands. (I did take the gloves off to play.)
It was a great opportunity to be part of the community! The Meridian Food Bank and the Rescue Mission were among the charities that benefited from the event, and so representatives from those organizations were on hand. The mayor was there.
Besides that, there were some big businesses there and it was neat to see them set aside the business attire. There were great costumes. There was there was a team that was Guns n Roses. So you had Slash and Axl Rose. There was a team American something or other, they had red, white, and blue, flashy golf pants and polos.
We all had matching t-shirts as you see in our photo. And we had our entourage, so everybody had their music when they were introduced. And so ours was Black-Eyed Peas, I Gotta Feeling (Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night). That was fun. You get to march up with your entourage out of the gate and dance, and throw out prizes.
We have a great Chamber of Commerce here in Meridian. They support us and it just continues to be a great avenue to meet new businesses and do events like this, where we can really show up to support our community. I'm so happy to be a part of it.