By Benny Westcott
Of The New Era
The Sweet Home Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Center’s website and digital membership experience have undergone overhauls with the July 20 rollout of an online platform called ChamberMaster.
The chamber’s updated website is integrated with ChamberMaster, which allows chamber membership to create and update its own online directory listings. This will result in “a more accurate and current catalog of goods and services offered in Sweet Home,” according to a July 27 post on the chamber’s Facebook page.
“Our community events calendar is now submittable by the public and members alike, making it easier for folks to get the word out about community events, and easier for us to make sure upcoming events are included in our monthly newsletters,” it continued,
Additionally, members can manage accounts via an app, where they can assign team members to different roles, and add job postings viewable on the new website.
Chamber Office Assistant Jen Castañeda described ChamberMaster as a web-based platform that enables the chamber to feature members and contacts all in one place.
“We can do billing from there, and email blasts,” she said. “We can send out anything. So it really helps us use everything.”
As the name suggests, ChamberMaster is created specifically for chambers of commerce, said Chamber Board President Christy Duncan.
“The cool thing about it is people have the right to go into their membership page and update it,” she said. “If they have events, they can submit that for us to put onto the calendar. If they have a job listing they can submit that, and we can post that on the website. And if they have a new member that’s a new broker or something in their business, they can go in themselves and update it.”
“It gives them a lot more hands-on access,” she added. “One of the great things is it’s not just being done through one person. They can put their own flair to their membership. The higher the member, the bigger the size that they have.”
Duncan said that the chamber’s used ChamberMaster elements before, but now it will all be in one place.
“We’ve actually used pieces, and then tried to get the pieces to work together, which wastes a ton of time,” she said. “But with this new product, once we get everything all in it, we won’t have to grab a piece from here and a piece from there. It’s just going to make it a lot more efficient.”
The chamber’s former executive director, Melody Reese, found the program during her tenure.
“She presented it and attended the classes and such,” Duncan said. “It’s really all on her that brought it onboard. We’re still working on putting it all together and trying to figure it out. It’s something that Melody researched and was trained for. I think she trained a couple of us for an hour.
“We are still learning what it actually does. I’m hoping we’ll learn more when that new [executive director] is ready to tackle it.”
The program offers training videos for how to use it, even for the members, Duncan said.
“In the long run, it’s going to be a huge asset to both staff and members, but it’s just going to take that time to get it all working together,” she said. “That’s what we’re working on right now.”
“It’s all inclusive,” Castañeda said. “Now we can put everything all in one. It’s really awesome. It’s going to save the staff a ton of time, because it’s going to work together, so we’re not grabbing and piecing and forgetting.”
Duncan noted that Sweet Home Community and Economic Development Director Blair Larsen called ChamberMaster “really cool” for giving members more hands-on access.
Of the new website itself, Castañeda said, “I think it definitely does more to embody the city of Sweet Home, with the colors and everything. I think it does better represent Sweet Home, and it’s definitely more navigation friendly.”
The chamber paid for ChamberMaster with a $5,764 grant from the Sweet Home Community Foundation. After the first year, the chamber will pay $79 a month for the service.
The change comes as the chamber is looking for a new executive director after Reese’s Aug. 1 resignation.
“She really feels like she did the right thing,” Duncan said of Reese’s decision to retire. “She’s spending extra time with her family. That’s why she stepped back, to spend more time with her family and help her husband with his business. It was really hard for her to make the decision.”
In her letter of resignation, Reese wrote, “The opportunity to get to know the Sweet Home business community and to work alongside so many passionate, dedicated people is one that I will forever be grateful for.”
Duncan said that Reese “consistently moved us forward. She consistently brought in more members. She is fabulous at community involvement. And our Facebook and website posts significantly increased. She will be greatly missed.”
“Melody was awesome at the technical stuff and Facebook. She’s very gifted at that,” she continued. “But she was from Lebanon. So we would really like to have somebody local that is invested and interested in Sweet Home as a community.”
She noted the difficulty of filling the executive director shoes with in-town candidates.
“It’s really hard with a small town, because a lot of people are either super artistic and techie, or really good at organization and administration,” she said. “But we need the executive director to do both.”
Interested parties should submit a resume and cover letter to 1575 Main St., or [email protected], by Aug. 19.
The full job description for the role can be found on the chamber’s website and Facebook page. Visit https://bit.ly/3dA4MUx for more information.