I’ve been thinking about the Chamber of Commerce. Every town has one, and we’ve got one, just like everybody else. I’m not sure that there’s anything that makes ours in any way special or different, it’s just a chamber.
Anyhow, the Charlottesville Chamber tries to get us to join every so often. Not with unreasonable frequency, just a phone call a couple of times a year, always from a woman that recalls that we’ve spoken before. We’re yet to join. My basic rationale is that I don’t understand what it would do for us, save for get us a lot of junk faxes about various chamber gatherings.
I’ve been thinking about the chamber, and I’ve come to realize that they don’t appear to do anything for anybody. It could be argued that they permit networking between businesses, but any organization (perhaps one that would actually do something) could accomplish that. Simply putting businessfolk in a room accomplishes that. I see no evidence of the chamber in the general community. Nobody ever says “gosh, it’s a good thing that the chamber helped us out,” or “if it weren’t for the chamber, that non-profit would never have made it.” I don’t doubt these things have happened. It’s just that I’ve never heard of them.
Wondering about this, I went through the chamber directory and found a few businesses that I’m friendly with. I called up a few. The response from each and every one of them? Nobody really knew why they’d joined, and could really go one way or the other on it. They all felt pressured to sign up, but couldn’t think of a thing that it did for them.
I’m probably not going to join, as you could guess. Mostly because I’m uncomfortable with the concept. It reminds me of when a gang (or the mob) asks a neighborhood shop keeper “do you want to buy protection from us?” The answer is always “yes,” of course. Well, I’m saying no. Maybe.