Chamber of Commerce examining the best way forward in 2014

Since the resignation of Jeanette Rabender from the post of Executive Director of the Kimball/Banner County Chamber of Commerce earlier this year, many have wondered what will become of the chamber and how it will move forward.

According to Chamber of Commerce Board President Jennifer Provance, the chamber board has been taking time to reevaluate and reorganize the chamber.

"We still are not ready to hire a director. Where we're at is trying to refocus on what our mission is. We did have a retreat in July for the board members to get some ideas about where we're going," Provance said.

The chamber has faced quite a few changes the past year with the resignation of Rabender and the shifting of the tourism aspect to the welcome center. These events led the chamber board to take a deeper, perhaps even more meaningful look at how it could better serve the community.

"It's so different than it used to be, because we've had so many changes. The biggest one is the tourism part coming out of the chamber office. They're now their own entity so obviously we've had to try to have a new identity and see what we need to focus on," Provance said.

The moving of tourism out of the chamber also led the board to look at whether or not the chamber was truly needed.

"There was discussion at that point that we may have to close the doors to the chamber. But it's been very evident that the chamber is necessary. That office is very busy. We have people coming in all the time for information. We send out information for our members. I still think the Chamber of Commerce is really invaluable to our community," Provance said.

Though the past year has been slightly trying for the chamber, it has carried on through the the hard work and diligence of Betty Elliott, who had served previously under Rabender, and the collaborative effort of the board members.

"Betty is wonderful. She is organized. She knows everything going on. The only thing that we're lacking now is a face for the chamber to go to different things. The board has been trying to pick up the slack in that area, but a director is very handy in that area," Provance said.

Currently, the chamber board is not actively seeking out someone to fill the role of director for the chamber, opting rather to spend the coming months preparing a conducive environment in which one could eventually move in to and get things moving a bit faster.

"Our thought was how do we bring a new director on board when we ourselves do not know how to advise a director. It's really unfair to bring someone else in when we don't really know what we're doing yet. Rather than do that, we're trying to have a clear idea what we're doing and then hopefully at some point we can bring a director in again," Provance said.

Though it is not necessarily at the forefront of the board members’ minds, there is a desire to potentially have a new director by the spring of 2014.

"We're kind of shooting for before the next annual meeting which will be February or March of next year. But you can't really put a time frame on that. We're trying to work on a mission statement right now, and we've asked for input from members," Provance said.

The board has already seen improvement in the new approach to the chamber through the lack of negative feedback that has been received in the past few months.

"One thing is we haven't had as many complaints. That's been good. I don't think people are going to come and say, 'Hey, you guys are doing a good job.' But they certainly let us know when they don't like something. Just the absence of those complaints, to me, says a lot too," Provance said.

For the time being, the board will continue to focus on the structure of the chamber and molding itself to serve the better interests of the community.

"We're doing the best we can. We're hoping by early next year that we're going to have a good idea of where we're going and how we want that to look going forward. We just need to get to the point where we are servicing our members.Really the only thing we're missing is that person, that face. Other than that, I think it's been going fairly smooth," Provance said.