Scott City Chamber of Commerce in a lull; hasn't met since October

Scott City Chamber of Commerce president Kyle McDonald is perplexed.

He and other chamber leaders say the organization is having problems getting its members to be involved and take an active role in supporting economic development in the Scott City area.

“I’ve always been perplexed about why it (the chamber) has never taken off down here,” he said. “You look at the Cape and Jackson chambers and they’re growing like crazy with active membership. Granted, this is a much smaller area, but there are probably 40 or 50 small businesses here that should be involved.”

McDonald is a Cape Girardeau resident but has operated a Farmers Insurance agency in Scott City since December 2011. He joined the Scott City Chamber of Commerce shortly after that, and it wasn’t long before he was added to the chamber’s executive committee.

“That first year on the committee they asked if I wanted to be vice president of the chamber because no one else wanted to,” he said. “Shortly after that, the president stepped down, so I was interim president for a while and then president for a two-year term.”

However, he has continued to serve as chamber president because no one else was available, or willing, to succeed him.

The chamber has a seven-member executive committee consisting of a president, vice president, secretary and treasurer, plus chairmen of three committees — membership, economic development and events.

“We had three positions that were open on the board,” McDonald said. “Nominations were made, and no one accepted and no one stepped up.”

Meetings of the chamber membership are scheduled for the fourth Wednesday of each month.

“At least we’re supposed to. We haven’t had a meeting since October,” McDonald said, adding there simply haven’t been enough RSVPs from members to justify having a meeting.

The problem is not new. According to a story in the Southeast Missourian published in October 2005, a “lack of participation” among Scott City Chamber of Commerce members threatened to kill the organization that was founded in the early 1980s.

“It seems like it’s been a cyclical problem,” McDonald said. “We always seemed to have the same handful of people at meetings and trying to get different people involved in committees and programs was difficult; after a while, you kinda get burned out.”

Former Scott City mayor and current chamber executive committee member Tim Porch agrees.

“I think it’s just a matter of getting people together and clicking again,” he said. “We’ve hit a lull with our meetings, but I definitely don’t think we should let it dissolve.”

Porch served as Scott City mayor from 2000 until 2016 and continues to serve on the town’s city council. Over the years, he has been involved in the chamber in various capacities.

“The chamber has come and gone several times over the past couple of decades,” he said. “It’s hard to keep it going.”

The chamber leadership has gone so far as to ask the leadership of the Cape Girardeau and Jackson chambers for advice.

“We’ve talked to Brian Gerau in Jackson and John Mehner in Cape, and they’ve both offered to come help.”

The problem, Porch said, is not the leadership.

“Kyle is doing an awesome job, and I think we have a good group of people, but we need to get some fresh thoughts and ideas from our membership,” he said.

McDonald and other members of the executive committee think its time to survey the chamber’s membership — which now stands at approximately 45 individuals who represent just more than 30 local businesses — to see what they think the chamber’s direction needs to be, when the chamber meetings should be held, what sort of programs they’d like to see the chamber sponsor and so forth.

“We need to answer the question about why members aren’t coming to chamber meetings,” said David Kieffer, chairman of the chamber’s economic development committee. Kieffer is a broker with Century 21 Ashland Realty in Cape Girardeau and lives in Kelso, Missouri, but has a strong interest in economic development in northern Scott County. “It’s their organization. We need their input. We need to find out what it’s going to take to get them involved.”

“It would be a shame for the chamber to become inactive,” he said.

Blake Lingle, a commercial loan officer at The Bank of Missouri branch in Scott City, chairs the chamber’s events committee.

“I think the biggest issue with the Scott City Chamber is the same issue that plagues many organizations and clubs, and that is involvement, or in this case, lack thereof,” he said. “A chamber is a unique group that has the sole intent of providing value to its members, which are businesses in the area and the heartbeat of the community. In our case, we simply need to balance the value we can add to those businesses and the recourse of having participation from the people receiving that benefit.”

Lingle and other members of the executive committee say it would be a shame if the chamber were to disband.

“I think becoming inactive throws away a ton of hard work that people put into making this what it is,” he said. “Businesses generally don’t see the benefits of a chamber in a ‘small town’ compared to other towns such as Cape and Jackson, but with the right material and participation, it can be equally valuable.”

The Scott City Chamber has been involved in several civic projects in recent years. For instance, it sponsored a wine festival to help build an amphitheater in Scott City Park and although that project didn’t come to fruition, the funds raised were used to provide seed money for expansion of the Boys and Girls Club into the Scott City schools.

“That program is doing very well now,” McDonald said. Looking forward, he said he hopes the chamber will be involved in the planning and sponsorship of Missouri bicentennial activities in Scott City in 2021.

“We just need an influx of new energy,” he said.

“I think there’s a misconception that you can’t belong to the chamber if you don’t own a business,” McDonald said. “But we want to get the word out that anybody can join.”

The chamber’s next membership meeting is scheduled for June 26.

“Between now and then, I want my phone to ring with people calling saying, ‘Kyle, I want to be involved’,” he said.

More information about the Scott City Chamber of Commerce may be found at www.scottcitymochamber.org.

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