Franklin County Chamber serves the entire region

Vermont Business Magazine, Nov 01, 2004

The Franklin County Regional Chamber of Commerce is a locally based organization founded and operational from its Downtown St Albans office since 1963. The Chamber not only serves St Albans City, but also has recently expanded its purview to the entire region of Franklin County.

The Chamber has for the past 40 years served the local public by serving as an information center for local residents, businesses, as well as tourists, incoming businesses etc. In short, the Franklin County Regional Chamber of Commerce largely serves as the host of St Albans and Franklin County, welcoming people when they come here to visit, stay, or do business.

The Chamber's function as an information provider within our county has both recreational and educational value. Many of our thousands of inquiries deal with referring persons to the various recreational sites and attractions within our region. These include the St Albans Historical Museum, Taylor Park, the Rail Trail and countless downtown merchants and eateries. Our response to inquiries also serves an educational purpose as we often provide information in regards to historical, genealogical, or geographical requests either made by teachers, students, or interested persons doing research on our area.

The Franklin County Regional Chamber of Commerce has been bustling with business for this entire year. We have answered over 12,000 inquiries from people calling and visiting the chamber office. The questions range from business requests, vacation requests and relocation requests to historical queries. Many of our visitors are not only from the New England Area but also represent many states in the U.S. as well as visitors from Canada and Europe.

The Chamber creates well over 600 relocation and vacation packets on the St. Albans and Franklin County Region each year, some for those individuals requesting the information, while other packets are put together for local businesses that are hiring new employees. Our relocation packets include general information about the area as well as real estate brochures, maps, event information, banking options, and other information from our members who have selected the membership option of inclusion in these packets.

The Chamber has also been instrumental in the Downtown Designation Process for St Albans. This focused project will result in revitalization of not only St Albans, but for all of Franklin County.

The Franklin County Regional Chamber of Commerce has unique website serving the St. Albans and Franklin County Region that is visited over 500 times per day. It's getting regular hits, and when "St Albans" is entered into a search engine our website pops up as one of the first options of sites to visit.

Our web page offers an abundance of information to visitors including; accommodations, dining, shopping, area attractions, upcoming events, as well as a listing of summer camp rentals. We offer people who ire relocating to the area, important contact information to the area, links to local papers, employment opportunities, membership listing, and our Franklin County brochure.

We also offer Franklin County residents a listing of upcoming events, as well as opportunities for them to post events, area job listings, and a pen pal program that includes people from all over the world who are trying to connect with local residents from this area.

The Chamber offers its Gift Certificate program to members and non-members alike. This gift giving, or employee recognition option allows the recipient to choose, among our hundreds of members, the place that they wish to use their gift certificate. Several local industries and manufacturers purchase large amounts of gift certificates for their employees; this money is put back into the Franklin County and St Albans economy allowing the recipients, the local business, and the Chamber to benefit from this program. In the past two years alone the gift certificate program ensured that over $15,000,00.00 was spent in St Albans and Franklin County Businesses.

The Chamber has also played a key role in the implementation of the Islands and Farms Regional Marketing Organization. The RMO (as it's called) is responsible for marketing the Franklin/Grand Isle region according to requirements set forth by the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing. This effort has been tasked with a budget in FY '03 of $52,000.00 appropriated to Market our region. Not only was the Chamber successful in its lobbying efforts in '03 in restoring level funding to this program, it further used these state funds to give St. Albans a presence in Marketing publications around New England.

Our staff, and Board of Directors, and many volunteer members continue to work very hard to be sure that first and foremost St. Albans and Franklin County is a notable place on the map. We also work very hard to ensure that businesses and organizations in Franklin County have ample opportunity to be promoted and networked through the Chamber opportunities.