The Eastern Plains Chamber of Commerce held its monthly meeting April 2. The group discussed changes to membership policies, recruitment and budgeting.Ray Singmaster, program manager for Mountain View Electric Association, spoke to the members about the utility’s commitment to community organizations throughout the cooperative’s service area. ìOne of our co-op principles is community involvement,î Singmaster said. ìWe’re involved in this chamber, the Tri-Lakes Chamber; and we’re glad to see this chamber moving in a positive direction. We’re going to be there in any way we can to help.îMarci Pancoast of Pennica Financial Group was named board secretary. Pancoast’s appointment will continue until full board elections take place in October, said Kevin Bornhoft, board treasurer. ìWhat we’re going to do over the next 45 days is answer the first question, which is who are our voting members,î Bornhoft said. ìWith everything that has been going on, we’ve lost track.î He said they will determine who thinks they are members and who has actually paid the dues.The board said it intends to start enforcing a bylaw provision that allows people to visit chamber meetings twice, and then they must join as members. ìI hope there’s great good in this organization,î Bornhoft said. ìIf you think there’s so much good to coming to this organization more than twice, pay your dues. That’s the direction we’re going to go.î Members of other chambers and organizations that are part of the Southern Colorado Business Partnership would be able to continue to attend Eastern Plains Chamber meetings as partner members because of the existing agreements among the chambers; however, they would not have voting privileges.Reporters for The New Falcon Herald and the Ranchland News have been attending chamber meetings to cover the events for readers. However, neither publication is a voting member because of possible conflicts of interest. The board is considering closing chamber meetings to publications that do not pay to attend. ìMembers of the press, well we don’t know yet,î Bornhoft said. ìWe’re discussing that, and that’s an issue we’ll have to address.î Connie Johnson, board president, said that she does not support a press exemption for meeting and event attendance. ìOnly Grace Church has officially been allowed to attend without dues, and that’s because of their providing the meeting location,î Johnson said.Budgeting and long-term fundraising priorities are being reviewed by the new board. ìWe’re fine financially,î Johnson said. ìPart of the thing I’m trying to sort out as treasurer is what are we planning on doing with all the money in the account,î Bornhoft said. ìWhy are we here, what are we doing, what is the plan for the money that we already have? There might have been a plan since the beginning of this chamber that led us to having this over $16,000 retained. But this current board wasn’t party to that plan, so this board and the current memberships are going to make a plan.îJohnson and Bornhoft discussed recruitment priorities and timelines with the members. ìPhase 1 is activate, phase 2 is recruit,î Bornhoft said. ìAt this point, what we need to focus on is making sure we have the active members in order to have the folk for fundraisers and activities,î Johnson said.ìWhen I first joined this chamber back in 2009, we were able to fill this room,î Johnson said. ìYou have issues that come up in any organization; you have 30 personalities if you have 30 members. But as a board, we intend to do our due diligence to help people work through that and keep our focus on what we’re all about.îThe next meeting will be held May 7 at 7:30 a.m. at Grace Community Church in Falcon.
