A survey was recently sent out to all chamber members to get their input.

 

“We wanted to find out what our membership thinks about how the chamber is operating and how it is run,” Chamber President Ben White said.

 

Survey results will be used as input for the chamber planning session which was held July 28 with Chamber guru Art Roberts.

“We invited Art Roberts to help us understand the current best practices for a chamber our size and how to better serve our membership and the community,” White said.

 

Art Roberts has served forty years in the chamber profession, the last nineteen years as the Senior Vice President for Chamber Relations of the Texas Association of Business.  He manages the division that works with chambers throughout Texas concerning business issues facing their members or concerning the operation of the chamber organization, and he serves as the CEO for the professional association for Chamber Executives (TCCE).

 

Roberts served 20 years in the Chamber profession as the Chief Executive Officer of four Texas Chambers of Commerce: Lamesa, Edinburg, Odessa and El Paso.

 

He is the author of Operating the Volunteer Organization, a book that received national publication and was designed for the staffs of volunteer organizations, and his second book designed for volunteers, Recognizing Your Role as a Volunteer, was released in 2004. 

 

He attended Odessa College, the University of Texas, the Institute of Organization Management at SMU, and the Academy of Organization Management at Notre Dame University.

 

He was one of two U.S. chamber executives selected to serve as the first instructors at the U.S. Chamber Institute for Central and South America, taught in San Jose Costa Rica. 

 

Roberts taught graduate level courses in association management at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin and was Chairman of the Board of Regents of the Institute for Organization Management at SMU.  

 

He was a founding member of the Board of the Center for Chamber of Commerce Excellence, an education program for chamber executives in four states operated through the University of Oklahoma.  

 

Roberts has facilitated more than 490 Planning Retreats for local chamber boards and associations, churches, charities, and city and county governments. Roberts has taught courses at the National Association for Chamber Executives (American Chamber of Commerce Executives) and he was sent to Cairo by the U.S. State Department’s “AID” program in 2008 where he helped form the first business association for the mortgage industry in Egypt.

 

“Based off of Robert’s input and the chamber membership, we will develop a plan for improvement to better serve our membership,” White said.

 

Though the first planning session was held July 28, White encourages everyone to continue to submit their surveys.

 

“We will still take input after the 28th because we believe everyone’s voice needs to be heard,” he said.

 

The survey will be an item instituted each year and will be changed every summer.

 

After the July 28 planning session, a tactical planning session will be held in August with the board using the survey as input.

 

For the July 28 meeting, the chamber is bringing in representation from Farmersville Economic Development Corporation (4A), Farmersville Community Development Corporation (4B), Farmersville Main Street Program and the Farmersville Marketing Committee.

 

– Wyndi Veigel, director Farmersville Chamber 

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