BonnerSprings.com

After the election of new officers this month, members of the Bonner Springs-Edwardsville Area Chamber of Commerce are looking to the future.

“We would like to increase our memberships and increase our monthly meeting attendance,” said president Marcia Ashford of the chamber’s plans for 2010.

Ashford said the chamber already had 12 new businesses sign up for memberships, and 57 businesses renewed their memberships, making a total of 69 members. Ashford said she’d like to see this number increase even more, and there were a couple of other items the chamber plans to improve on, as well.

“We want to build upon the successes of the festivals that we sponsor, which are Marble Days, Tiblow Days and the barbecue contest … Edwardsville AutumnFest and our golf tournament,” Ashford said.

The success of these events to date, Ashford said, could already be seen in the amount of money and canned good items the chamber was able to give to Vaughn-Trent Community Services during the Candy Cane Promenade on Nov. 30. At that event, Vaughn-Trent received a check for $500 and about $200 worth of canned items from the chamber.

“We want to keep supporting our local charities here in town and continue to use the events as fundraisers for different things,” Ashford said.

Other improvements the chamber has planned for 2010 Ashford noted would be to the Web site and the chamber’s annual meeting, which will be in February. Ashford said the event would be more like a gala, with a sit-down dinner, a Valentine’s Day theme and live music.

“We will be recognizing a chamber business of the year and a chamber member of the year,” Ashford said of another major change to next year’s annual meeting, noting that previously the chamber had only recognized notable residents in both Bonner Springs and Edwardsville. “Because we are a business organization, we are going to focus on our membership and our businesses.”

With a total of 409 licensed businesses in both cities represented by the chamber, Ashford said a strong focus next year would be to increase the trend of shopping local.

“As a chamber, that’s what we should be focusing on and urging people to do, is to help keep our local businesses viable,” Ashford said.

Though the economy has affected every business community, Ashford said Bonner Springs and Edwardsville had been lucky, with few business closings in the past year. She said it had still been a tough year, however, and she hoped next year would go a little easier for the local businesses.

“The kind of a gauge of how we’re doing in our community and business community is that there haven’t been a lot of closings,” Ashford said. “There’ve been some, but not a lot. So we’re hopeful the economy will turn around in 2010 for everyone’s sake.”

Improving on the chamber’s Web site, Ashford said, would play a major role in getting more business to the area. She said a city’s chamber of commerce Web site is one of the first places outside visitors look to when considering traveling to another city to shop.

“So we want to make it more user-friendly and advertise a little bit better on the attractions here and shopping opportunities,” Ashford said.

Comments