5/5/05 Chamber Minutes

Meeting began: 8:05

In Attendance:

Tim Barkley, Barkley Law Office

Ellie Bonde, Blossom & Basket / Secret Stork

Howard LeRoux, Mt Airy Dent Repair

Archie Rogers, Rogers Engraving & Stamps

Kerry Turner, Frederick News-Post

Kevin O’Neil - Remax

Tom Neff, Main St Computer Consultants

Dennis Regulinski – Mid – Atlantic Accounting

Audrey Stapf

Denny Ahalt – New Windsor State Bank

Carol Blackburn, The Gazette

Joyce Picard-Busse – The Entrepreneur’s Source

Karen Pelton – Pelton Marketing Services

Terry Delph – Custom Construction

Marlene Titus – Carroll Comm College

Terri Perry – The Gazette

Bob Brill – Morgan Stanley

Melinda Byrd - Byrdcall Studio

Paul Schaffer – National City Mortgage

Jim Jones – The Credit Card Store

Andrew Williamson – Chiropractic First

Carol Cahall – The Main Event

Ken Matthews, Freedom Carpet Cleaning

Lisa Wolsh, Long & Foster

Steve Rose – Torn 2 Shredz

Aaron Kahn – Eclipse Security

George Brown – Total Construction Services

Harry Johnson - Aflac

Keir Knight – Plain English Writing and Design

Terry Smith – Coldwell Banker

Wilma Brown – Longaberger

Corrine Zwiselsberger, Creations by Corrine

Danny Dixon – Farmers & Mechanics Bank

Kaye Kolb – Rohrbaugh’s Charter Service

Ray Farrar – Olde Mill Construction

Cindy Kelly – Long & Foster

Sandy Shumate – Bezalel Designs

Kimberly Lape – BB&T

Thank you to Ken Matthews for recruiting 3 new chamber members!

Minutes

Minutes stand as posted on the website.

Committee Reports

Finance: Today’s balance is $25166.59.

Social/Business Card Exchanges:

Exchanges – June 7 4-7pm Forty West Builders Model Home

June 21 7:30 – 9:30AM at Costco in Frederick

October 12 5-8pm New Windsor State Bank

Membership Outreach

11 new members have joined in April. Give your card to Audrey to put on her display board if you haven’t already. 280 members total.

Motion by Audrey to order 100 new chamber decals. Howard seconded. Motion passed.

Government Relations

Carroll Co Chamber

Joyce will be passing around the newsletter from the Carroll Co Chamber. As members of Mt Airy chamber, you can attend Carroll Co chamber events. Member Luncheon on 5/12. Connections after hours 5/17. Breakfast 5/24. Orientation 5/27. There is a youth leadership program coming up as well.

Ambassadors

Welcome to Tom Neff as the newest member of the Ambassadors committee. Established chamber members, please reach out to the newest chamber members. Ellie has a sign-up sheet for name badges - $5.25. There are new member packets on the back table – if you haven’t received your packet yet, please check the boxes.

Professional Development

Marlene is putting together a series of professional development seminars. There will be a survey on the website within the next few weeks to see what people are interested in.

Advertising & Marketing

Ran ads for business card exchange in Messenger, Gazette, CC Times, and Fred News-Post. Website – averaging around 250 hits per month. Please update your profile. Keir is working on a golf and tournament page. Thank you to Lisa for taking over the newsletter. If you have any ideas of how to promote or market the chamber, let Keir know.

Old Business

Business Fair

54 merchants are signed up for the business fair - twice as many as last year. Taken in $6200. Approx $5000 will go to advertising. Volunteers are needed for set up on Fri 4 – 7 pm and break down on Sat after the fair. Set up times for businesses 7pm Fri or 8am Sat. Have everything set up by 10am on Sat. Tell Audrey what your door prize is if you haven’t already. There are 67 door prizes! The tables will be skirted. They are 8’ tables – provide your own cloth if you want one. If you are outside, you may need to bring your own table.

Keir sent out 11,500 post cards to all residents in 21771 advertising the business fair. The cost was $2000. Keir moves that 1/2 of the $2000 comes from the chamber account ($1000 is being taken from business fair account). Tom Neff seconded. Motion passed. There are banners up around the community advertising the event. There have been ads and editorial in the Gazette and the Messenger.

The committee will look into a security guard for Friday night.

Phone Book

The phone book is a joint venture with Kiwanis and is a totally separate entity from the Chamber (not included in our account). The phone book will now be coming out by the beginning of June. Please check your proofs and get them back to Keir as quickly as possible. If you haven’t received your proof yet, Keir is still working on a few. If you haven’t received it in about a week, let him know. Looking for input on when to put out the next book – 1 year, 1.5 years, 2 years.

New Business

Dates to Remember

Sat – Business Fair

May 14/15 - MayFest

May 31 – Executive Committee Meeting – please come with ideas!
June 2 – next business meeting

2006 planning meeting will be in Sept or Oct of this year. If you feel something needs to be covered, let Tim know.

Other

Tom Neff moves that the Chamber offer a reward of $1000 to catch the people who committed the Jaycees vandalism last Sat. Keir seconded. Tom offered to put $100 towards the reward. It is contingent upon working with Sergeant Grotte, to whomever gives the tip leading to the conviction. Denny discussed that we need to be careful with our discretionary funds. Amendment – if they have been caught, we will not put the money out. Clarify motion: chamber will offer $1000 to the tip that leads to the apprehension and conviction of the person who did the crime against the Jaycees on Sat. Sgt Grotte needs to provide in writing the person who provides the tip.

Question called. Motion passed.

There will be a new page on the website featuring all area events and community organizations. Need a sponsor for this page – if you are interested, let Keir know.

If you don’t receive e-mail or look at the website, let Audrey know and she will get information to you.

Denny moves that we give $1000 to Leadership Carroll youth leadership program. Tim mentioned that there will be $1000 left from the business fair that could be used for this donation. Lisa recommended we table this motion until the next meeting. Motion will be turned over to the business fair committee.

New Members Orientation

Immediately following meeting.

Meeting adjourned at 9:20am.