The O’Fallon Chamber of Commerce would like to let our members and businesses in our community know that our organization has no intention on merging with any other Chamber of Commerce in our area.

Although the membership of the St. Charles and St. Peters Chambers have chosen to merge in order to “increase efficiencies”, the O’Fallon Chamber has been running an efficient member centric organization for years. The O’Fallon Chamber serves the largest city in St. Charles County, O’Fallon, with over 500 members, 67% of which are located in O’Fallon; 91% in St. Charles County and does so while adding benefits and keeping its membership investment at levels that are attainable for businesses of all budgets.

The O’Fallon Chamber has not raised its membership rates since 2004, something we are very proud of. The organization has been able to accomplish this by remaining member centered. “We understand how hard our businesses work for their dollars, so when they choose to invest those dollars with our organization it is our duty to serve them to the fullest while being as frugal as possible with the money they have invested with us”, says Erin Williams, President/CEO of the O’Fallon Chamber of Commerce. The O’Fallon Chamber supplements its budget with fundraisers throughout the year in order to keep services at their highest without asking for a dues increase.

The O’Fallon Chamber continues to add benefits and services to its roster in order to serve members in the areas of networking, education and advocacy. In 2011 the O’Fallon Chamber invested in a software system that allows members to promote themselves in a variety of ways. In 2012 the Chamber is looking forward to the addition of a new promotion that will undoubtedly increase membership participation at networking events, as well as the addition of more free educational events to help foster the continuing education for our small business owners and managers. The O’Fallon Chamber will also begin a Legislative Awareness committee in 2012 so that our business community is always educated on the issues that are affecting their businesses and the opportunities to be proactive assuring a climate of economic vitality.

Earlier press releases from the merged organization state that the “decline in membership over the past several years was a major driving force for the merger.” The O’Fallon Chamber of Commerce has continued to grow. Since June of 2010 membership has increased by 13%. The O’Fallon Chamber has added 129 new members so far in 2011.

“The membership of the St. Peters and St. Charles Chambers have spoken and voted to merge their organizations and we fully respect that. What we oppose at the O’Fallon Chamber is the name, Greater St. Charles County Chamber of Commerce. I believe that the name misrepresents the merged organization to the business community. They have merged two of the eight Chambers of Commerce in our county, not even close to a majority, but still feel that it is okay to refer to the organization as a county-wide Chamber of Commerce,” said Williams. “I am disappointed that the leadership of the merged organization never reached out to the other Chambers in the county, which represent over 1500 businesses to even discuss our concerns.”

Williams goes on to say, “the Chambers in our county have had a great working relationship in the past, and now I worry about that relationship with the obvious disrespect that has been shown to the majority of the Chambers of Commerce here.”