Grinnell Chamber revamps self, local economy

By ROXANNE DASS, rdass@dmreg.com

The Grinnell Chamber of Commerce staff spans six generations, who help make chamber events relevant to people from 18 to 80, said newly hired chamber director Angela Harrington. Pictured, from left, are Melissa West, Angela Harrington, college intern Julia Fine, Jean Jones and Sheryl Parmley. Not pictured is high school intern Emily Kriegel.

The Grinnell Area Chamber of Commerce has seen several changes over the past few months, starting with new chamber director, Angela Harrington. Harrington was hired as chamber director in February. She brings with her years of experience as a business owner and chamber member. “I’ve been a member of a chamber for 22 years depending on what city I was in,” said Harrington.

Harrington, originally from Colorado, has lived in Iowa for the past 12 years. For 11 of those 12 years she has owned two businesses.

One was a summer camp with five locations through the Des Moines area and the other was a restaurant with locations in Oskaloosa (where she currently resides) Des Moines, and Colorado Springs, Colo. Harrington has also helped with a number of long-term consulting projects. She helped write business plans and helped others get started opening up their own businesses.

“Part of my experiences included demographic research and choosing things that fit into economic development,” she said. “I’ve also been a business owner so I have that perspective of the outsider looking in.”

And that is why a year and a half ago she decided to get involved with the chamber and economic development. Harrington said she stumbled across the listing for the opening for the Grinnell Chamber director. She researched information about Grinnell to learn a little more about the town.

“I found some pretty striking things about Grinnell,” she said. “The one that stood out the most was that per capita spending in Grinnell is incredibly low compared to other cities of the same size in Iowa. If we could get the per capita spending to a level like peer cities in Iowa, it would make some tremendous ground for having more money available for quality of life projects in Grinnell.”

Getting per capita spending up in Grinnell is just one of Harrington’s three major goals as chamber director. The other goals include creating value in chamber membership and helping members stay and grow in business.

MAKING STRIDES

In the four months she has been director, Harrington has helped create new campaigns, events, benefits and chamber membership has grown, adding 35 new members..

“It’s been such a crazy four months,” she said. One of the first campaigns Harrington began was a direct mail campaign. Every household in Poweshiek County now receives a newsletter listing chamber events and business promotions.

“There hasn’t ever really been a direct mail campaign in Grinnell,” said Harrington. “Direct mail is a very important marketing campaign. It doesn’t take the place of print and broadcast media, but it is an important partner to traditional ways of advertising.”

The chamber also sends out an e-mail blast to about 2,000 people. Harrington hopes to have 5,000 recipients by the end of the summer. Harrington said a big change was with the chamber’s Web site.

“We wanted to make sure the chamber is the information center of Grinnell, like chambers are supposed to be,” she said. “We have a lot of information on the site and we are the community calendar.”

Even the chamber’s infrastructure received a facelift. Harrington said it had been several years since anything was updated in the chamber office.

“Every form, every member directory, the Village profile books, everything was updated,” she said. “Even our technology was very outdated, we still had the old green screen monitors.”

Harrington said small changes can make an impact on the community and economy.

“When people know what’s going on, they are out and doing things. That creates economic movement,” she said.

“It’s important for chambers to keep that economy going and to keep people aware of what there is to do both in shopping and events. It keeps the economy rolling and members in business.”

NEW BUSINESSES

Harrington thinks one reason per capita spending is so low is because there are not enough choices in nichetype businesses in town. “It’s those niche stores that are doing really well and the things people are asking for,” said Harrington. The chamber along with Renaissance (downtown development committee) identified several business areas which Grinnell lacks.

“One major leak in the city is a national furniture franchise,” said Harrington. “It’s a really important thing to get enough choices in furniture so that people aren’t going to the big cities to buy theirs.”

Large antique furniture is something Harrington said people ask her about.

“There’s always room to expand on antique and unique furniture,” she said. Other businesses Harrington would like to see includes a hard ice cream store downtown; a play and trade video game store; a specialty pet supply store;  a specialty kitchenware store, and a sporting equipment store.

“What I’m really hoping is that current shop owners expand their businesses to include these things,” said Harrington. “That will help them stay in business and create more business.”

CHAMBER EVENTS

The chamber is responsible for about 25 events through the year. Harrington said she wants to look at how the events will benefit quality of life in Grinnell and make sense for chamber members to participate.

One event the chamber introduced this year is Friday Fest. The event kicked off June 5 in downtown Grinnell. It will be held on the first Friday of every month through October.

Harrington said she wanted Friday Fest to be a family-friendly event for families and a way to help boost local spending for participating businesses. “It went so well for everyone involved,” she said. “We had little babies to grandparents there. And all the businesses who participated or stayed open late for the event had great nights. The economic impact was all over there.” During the winter months Harrington said she would like to bring to life a “Business After Hours” campaign,

 similar to Friday Fest.

“On Fridays, we would ask businesses to stay open a little later so people can hop from business to business,” she said.

But Harrington said it will take time when it comes to revamping chamber events.

“Until I get through a whole first year of life in Grinnell, look at how the events are run and how they help members, we probably won’t try to refresh or redo a lot of the events,” she said. “I’d say by next year though, we’ll start to tackle that.”

A WEEKEND GETAWAY

Grinnell’s location makes the town a perfect place for a “weekend getaway,” said Harrington.

“We are right between Iowa City and Des Moines,” she said. “If we create a ‘Meet Me in Grinnell’ strategy, we could fill all those hotel rooms every weekend.”

Harrington is currently working on a brochure to send out to Iowa’s big cities, touting Grinnell as the perfect weekend vacation.

“Once we have the new library and aquatic center finished, we are really going to capitalize on creating weekend packages next summer,” said Harrington.

“There’s so much to see and do here in Grinnell, I really want to make people in those cities aware of what’s right at their door.”

Once the “Meet Me in Grinnell” strategy is up and running, Harrington said she would like to make the town more convention-friendly. According to Harrington, the chamber and the Grinnell Convention and Visitors Bureau put several bids for conventions out every year, but are never chosen.

“Everytime we get the feedback, Grinnell is in the top running or is the top pick until they figure out we don’t have an actual convention center,” said Harrington. “It’s too bad because our location is perfect, once again. All these associations and organizations have groups in Des Moines, Iowa City and Cedar Rapids and this would be the perfect place for them to meet.” Conventions draw in hundreds of people to town and that helps local economy.

“We can increase the town’s population by the hundreds or even by a

1,000 with people who don’t need jobs.

Those people will spend money in our local businesses,” she said. Harrington said Grinnell College could be an option to hold conventions, but only in the summer. During fall, winter and spring, classes are in session.

“People find out they have to go outside in the middle of winter for smaller meetings and that’s a drawback for us,”she said. “It would be great to eventually have a contiguous space to hold conventions with smaller breakout rooms.”

COSMOPOLITAN TOWN

While Harrington has several ideas for new events and businesses for Grinnell, these ideas just add to a town with a rich quality of life.

“We are really lucky here in Grinnell,” said Harrington. “We have coffee shops, events at the college, events in town, so many unique shops, a huge selection of eating places. Grinnell truly is the jewel of the prairie.”

For a list of chamber and community events, visit the Grinnell Area Chamber of Commerce Web site at www.grinnellchamber.org.

UPDATED June 26, 2009 10:10 AM