Meeting Minutes: July 10, 2014
July 14, 2014
Meeting called to order on July 10th by President Jane Cozad.
June minutes were read and approved. Motion Norm. Second Dan. All approved.
The financial report was given. General Fund $791.03. Savings $431.50. Total funds $5836.20. Motion Marie. Second Larry.. All approved.
Jordan Bollenbacher contact the Chamber office to received his Fall installment for
his scholarship funds.
Congratulations to VanityKept for being the July Chamber Business of the Month.
We had over 1,000 views on the Facebook post. On a side note – Marie attended a combined Chamber meeting from the Van Wert / Lima Area. Several chambers mentioned that they like the idea of ‘Business of the Month” and will be adopting into their Chamber programs.
FUN Challenge update . We had lots of positive feedback. We had several teams sign up the day of the race. We are calling this mildly successful and will begin promoting next years event at 9 months, 6 months and 3 months before the event. We will be making some improvements. We will be trying to incorporate the garage sales in the event. Looking at paying 3 places instead of just 1st place and will be considering a “last person in” prize.
In regards to the letter that was send regarding the Rockford Welcome Signs. Dan Henkle reports that it would be good to acknowledge the bands superior ratings but not sure the Welcome Sign is the place to do it. The sports programa put their trophies in the gym area and it has been suggested that maybe something be done in the auditorium area so that when people come to see the band concerts the awards and acknowledgement of accomplishments would be located in that area. Maybe there is a way the Chamber could help in this area instead of the Welcome sign. If one organization is posted , not sure how to go about making sure all organizations are represented. Lisa to take this information to the Music Boosters and report any information back to the Chamber.
Social media classes will be put on hold until September. Classes will resume on
Monday – September 8th at the Rockford Library basement at 6 pm.
Website update – because of Community Days, June was a high traffic month. Over 1,000 visits. Key words – Community Days, Rockford, Ohio and Rockford Alive.
Of the 1,00 visits – 234 found us by rockfordohio.org, 200 via Facebook and rest using a search engine. Most used pages – Home page, Community Days and then the calendar.
Chamber members – please let us know if you have any changes to the web site information. We would like to keep the information updated as much as possible.
Membership directory – work in process. Goal for August meeting is to have something to show. The updated phone directory is being printed.
Christmas event – deadlines are getting close. Have heard nothing specific yet.
Joyce Emans has requested the Chamber help in getting some volunteers to help decorate Shanes Park for Christmas on November 8th and November 15th. Jane has pictures from last year. Marie to create an event for a call for Volunteers.
Along with Christmas information. We will need to decided if and what we are
Doing with the Santa House this year. If we have an event in the business district the Santa house will be displayed downtown. If we don’t have an event downtown, we will be using it at Shanes Park along with other Christmas lights and will have
Santa visit a couple of times during the Christmas season.
Lisa to contact Dick and Karen Sapp to see what needs done on the Santa House and get an estimate of needs to the next chamber meeting.
Chamber Banquet –November 6th. Lisa and Jane will work on this committee. Anyone else that would like to volunteer for this committee? Need ideas for speaker? Jane will check with Mike Bruns to see if Triad is willing to provide music.
Marie brought an idea to the table about the Rockford Chamber becoming members of the Celina – Mercer County Chamber. This would benefit our members so that when Celina- Mercer has an event our members would get the membership pricing to participate – sometime that means FREE. ! Motion ok to Join but need to know when the membership time is? Would it be better to wait until January 2015 ?
Leadership Class – Motion Norm. Second Lisa to approve Marie Miller for the 2015 Mercer County Leadership Class.
Norm is working on the Rockford Bicentennial year long festivities in 2020. We will be scheduling a meeting with local businesses, and organizations to help plan this event. We need a chairperson to oversee the event. The Chamber will look into purchasing some new banners for this event.
Motion Marie / Second Jane to adjourn the meeting.
