ANNUAL REPORT
The mission of the Carefree-Cave Creek Chamber of Commerce is to improve the economic vitality of the business community.
Goals for 2011-2010
We have a new larger board of directors and a renewed vision of what the chamber’s mission is for the future. At the heart of that vision is a strengthened commitment to our membership. We are a membership organization and while the reasons for membership are varied, hundreds of businesses and organizations are counting on the chamber to enhance and promote their business. This is a responsibility the chamber does not take lightly.
While the chamber strives to promote all business, our goal is to improve the level of value that a membership with the Carefree Cave Creek Chamber provides. Improved communication through our website and social media, along with additional and improved networking and marketing opportunities for our members, are two examples of what your chamber priorities are this year.
Other goals include the expansion of some important chamber committees including events, golf, ambassadors, communications and business advocacy; creation of an additional fund-raiser, an improved schedule for breakfast speakers and structured networking activities and growing our membership base.
Highlights of 2010-2011
Two of our top priorities this year were the revision of our website to create a more efficient and user friendly business directory and community wide calendar and the expansion of our Visitor Information Center.
The new website was created with input from a community focus group. The new website has an improved business directory searchable by name, category and key words. A community events calendar was created that various organizations can use to submit their events. The new website incorporates updated visitor and resident information; it has quick facts and a photo gallery for media inquiries, a section on the chamber with our events and newsletter, social media feeds and it is all easily updateable by staff.
The expansion of our Visitor Information Center has taken place with our chamber members’ assistance. The generous donations of time, talents and materials produced very pleasing results. We are also looking forward to additional upgrades to the Visitor Information Center with financial support from the landlord through tenant improvements. We welcome you to stop in and take a peek at the changes and at the same time greet our new group of trained volunteers who are on board to staff the center. With the addition of these volunteers we will be expanding the hours of operation of the Visitor Information Center to better serve our guests and members.
We enhanced our signature publication the 2010-2011 edition of the Community Guide & Membership Directory to what many say was our best edition ever. The revised look of the guide proved to be overwhelmingly popular as it was hard to keep them in stock at many distribution points. This guide continues to be the chamber's number one mail out piece for community information inquiries. More emphasis on local distribution this year placed a high percentage of the 15,000 copies into the hands of residents in our community.
Additional Accomplishments
- Provided a $2,500 and a $500 scholarship to 2 graduating seniors in the workforce development internship program in conjunction with our local high school.
- Held a Christmas in July food drive where we collected more than 520 pounds of food, 25 cases of water and over $750 in donations for the Foothills Food Bank.
- Organized the light parade for the Carefree Christmas festival. An estimated 18, 000 people were in attendance from all over the valley. Approximately 50 entries were in the mile long parade.
- Managed volunteer staff for the entrance gates and wine sales at all Carefree Fine Art & Wine Festivals. Attendance was up significantly over the last several years and we exceeded our revenue goals by 25% making this a great fundraiser for the chamber.
- Larger crowds have attended our networking functions. Our monthly membership breakfast has an average of sixty participants each month and our monthly after-hours mixer an average of fifty participants each month.
- Enhanced the experience of the attendees at our monthly Business Breakfast by introducing new members at the Breakfast, presenting them with a membership plaque and encouraging them to make a short presentation on their business. Membership anniversaries are also announced each month at breakfast to honor those members that have supported the chamber over its history. Chamber bucks are awarded to those members who bring in a new member. Introduced “Speed Networking” and other structured networking activities at least quarterly which have proved to be quite popular with our members.
- Annual Chamber Awards were moved to an evening venue at Tatum Ranch Golf Course to honor outstanding members of the year. Each winner was surprised by the telling of personal stories from their childhood along with the accompanying photographs display in a power point presentation. Award recipients and audience members were both surprised and delighted by this personal touch.
- Approved a balanced annual budget despite losing financial support from the town of Carefree that assisted in operating the Visitor Information Center.
- Completed a member satisfaction survey to guide the chamber goals for next year. 83% of respondents joined for networking opportunities and business contacts, 78% for community involvement, and 69% for representation of their business within the Chamber. 89% indicated they are satisfied with the chamber. All current networking and communication programs were confirmed as important for the chamber to continue to provide. Marketing the region, economic development and business advocacy were seen as the top 3 priorities moving forward.
- The chamber advertised our Carefree and Caver Creek destinations in AZ KEY magazine, City Sun Times and the Times on a monthly basis. Weekly events press releases were printed in the Scottsdale Republic and Foothills Focus. Monthly events were publicized in a special section of the AZ Republic and City Sun Times. More active posts were recorded on Facebook for chamber and community events.
