Chamber reps appeal to future leaders
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By Jennifer DeWitt | Thursday, January 11, 2007 |
In many ways, a decision last fall not to merge the Quad-City area’s three chambers of commerce already has strengthened the cooperation between the organizations and is putting a new emphasis on regionalism.
That was the message Wednesday from chamber leaders as they lunched with those who very well might be among tomorrow’s community leaders. Rick Baker of the Illinois Quad-Cities Chamber of Commerce, Scott Tunnicliff of the Bettendorf Chamber of Commerce and Betsy Brandsgard of DavenportOne discussed the future of the chambers at a CEO Roundtable hosted by the Young Professionals Network, or YPN. About 35 members of the under-40 networking group gathered at Quad-City Arts in downtown Rock Island for the monthly event.
Two months ago, the boards of directors of the three chambers announced they did not want to merge, but instead planned to strengthen cooperation through the Quad-City Chamber Federation. The decision came after 18 months of behind-the-scenes studying by a regional task force of business and community leaders.
Brandsgard, DavenportOne’s executive vice president, told the group that the business community “wanted to be sure we were being the most efficient we could be.” While the task force was not set on what structure the chambers should take, she said “They wanted us to justify and measure what we do.”
What they realized, she said, is that many issues already are being handled in a regional fashion. “But there are a number of things we decided to do through the chamber federation rather than a full-blown merger of staffs and offices.”
Baker said one of the main concerns the chambers had about merging was that most had recently completed strategic planning. “For us, we worried how it was going to effect implementing the major agenda (BluePrint 2010) that we had just spent two years creating.”
The leaders acknowledged that the merger talk was born out of a money issue with chamber members paying dues often to multiple groups, not only the chambers but other economic development groups.
What the task force’s research showed was the chambers have less duplication than people thought, Baker said.
Quizzed about the prospect of a merger, Tunnicliff told the group the chambers were concerned that in a merger they would lose the different character of each chamber. “Some of the good things represented in our chamber could be lost because of being absorbed (into a larger chamber),” he said.
Still, he encouraged the young professionals to help “embrace the idea that we are a two-state market.”
Jennifer DeWitt can be contacted at (563) 383-2318 or jdewitt@qctimes.com.
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