Chamber encouraging new membership with drive
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, June 15, 2005
DEMOPOLIS-The Demopolis Area Chamber of Commerce wants you. If you are a business in the area and have not joined the Chamber now may be the perfect time. The Chamber will soon launch a membership drive geared toward adding members to an already strong group.
Chamber President Jay Shows said the campaign should kick off in the next few weeks.
“We expect our three team members to start having their meetings around the last week in June and the first week of July,” Shows said. “They will probably start getting their packages together and trying to entice some businesses into joining.”
Shows said there are several businesses in town that have not joined and they would like to show them some of the benefits of membership. He said they would love to get them all on board, but would consider the campaign a success if they could get around 25 new businesses interested in membership.
“We are going to try to call about 75 businesses that are not Chamber members now,” Shows said. “Of that number we would like to see some come aboard. We would consider it a success if we could get 20 to 25 to come aboard.”
The Demopolis Times will work hand in hand with the Chamber in hopes of boosting membership. The Times plans to offer new members a free 2 by 5 ad as an added incentive for new members. Shows said the Chamber and local paper would also work together to get new members additional exposure.
“We have also talked about working with the paper to do ribbon cuttings for our new members,” Shows said. “Some businesses may have been in town for 10 years, but they may not be Chamber members. We would do ribbon cuttings for them and put a small profile in the paper.”
This year the Demopolis Area Chamber of Commerce turned 90 years old and has benefited the community on many levels in that time. The Chamber’s purpose through its history has been to make Demopolis a better place to live, visit, and transact business; by providing business assistance, connections, and data which create a positive business climate. This climate is intended to allow businesses to profit, create jobs, and improve the quality of life for the Demopolis area.