Lenox Chamber updates policies

LENOX – Chamber of Commerce Director Ralph Petillo is confident in the direction the chamber of commerce is going in terms of both membership and advertising.

“It looks like we’re going to be up in membership but I will know more by [the] middle of April,” he said in comments to The Beacon. “I am hoping that there will be well over 200 members this year.”

Mr. Petillo also said the chamber was doing a good job this year in collecting on back dues.

“There’s maybe 10 percent of the chamber who are not members in good standing,” he said.

He defined member in good standing as a member who has paid all of their dues.

Of the approximately 17 members who currently aren’t in good standing, Mr. Petillo said 11 of them had already made arrangements to pay their dues.

In terms of how much money the dues and back dues of the members not in good standing represented, he said it was less than $5,000.

In previous years, Mr. Petillo said 30-35 percent of chamber members had owed back dues, but by sending out both advertising information and dues letters on Jan. 1, this number had shrunk.

“When the dues letters go out, advertising letters go out with them,” he said.

He explained the previous policy had been to send out dues letters in October, while information about advertising in the directory had been sent out in March.

“A lot of people got very confused,” said Mr. Petillo, who added the old policy had resulted in some people paying their dues multiple times.

He also said this year’s switch was helping to increase advertising, both in the chamber’s directory and on the chamber’s website.

“I’m getting more ads and filling up more space [in the directory] than any other year before,” he said.

Posted by Bera B. Dunau on March 28, 2013. Filed under Community News,News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry