Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Chamber GPS--Where are we and who are we?

The Chamber covers the Clarkston area--which we define as the City of the Village of Clarkston, Independence Township, Springfield Township, Davisburg and the Dixie Corridor. It matches the overlay of Clarkston Community Schools attendance boundaries with some extra areas.

Our mission is to promote and enhance business opportunities in the Clarkston Area for our members.

You wouldn't think that defining your geographic area would be difficult. Surprisingly, when you bring 18-20 people together and ask them to tell you "What is Clarkston?" you'll get several different answers.

It could have been just the City of the Village of Clarkston. From a municipality standpoint, that is the most accurate definition. The City is the only REAL Clarkston in some people's minds.

Yet the city is about 1 square mile, with a 2 block business district and 800 residents. It also sits in the middle of Independence Township, not unlike a donut hole inside a donut.

Clarkston could be defined by the Clarkston zipcodes. 48346 and 48348. And in truth, the largest portion of our membership resides in those zipcodes. Yet the intermingling of commerce between Springfield Township to our west and a sliver of Waterford Township to our South doesn't stop at a postal zipcode.

A study of where natural patterns of commerce were taking place indicated that Davisburg and a large portion of Springfield Township utilize Clarkston businesses for retail, restaurants and services. Mostly rural and residential there was no hub of business promotion or development until you reach Holly. For those reasons, we included Springfield Township in our geographic definition of the Clarkston Area.

The Clarkston Chamber was founded 10 years before Waterford Area Chamber was created and in those years many businesses on the border with Clarkston joined our Chamber and were very active and commited to improving our economic climate.

Since a vibrant and growing Waterford Chamber under the direction of Marie Hauswirth came on the scene, many of these businesses still choose belong to the Clarkston Area Chamber (in addition to joining the Waterford Chamber.) Several Waterford business owners have been Presidents of the Clarkston Area Chamber.

It is a myth that you have to have a business located in the geographic area of a community in order to join their Chamber of Commerce.

It is a myth that by virtue of having a business located in a geographic area, that you are automatically a member of the Chamber of Commerce. We are not a DDA. We do not receive tax dollars or other financial support from governmental agencies.

So why would you join more than one Chamber? Well . . . why do you subscribe to more than one magazine or newspaper? Why do you watch more than one TV station? And why would you belong to more than one club or professional organization?

You do it for information, for programs and for social and business networking.

Clarkston Area Chamber is an expert on OUR geographic area. We know it well. We can help you know it well. We connect you to the audiences here (business to business and business to consumer.) While our programs are good and members like what we're doing . . . we don't do it IN Waterford for our Waterford member businesses. The same is true of our Auburn Hills members, the Lake Orion members, the Pontiac members, the Rochester members.

If you want to be promoted and connect with businesses and consumers in those areas, you need to join those Chambers.

If you want to be promoted inside our community, then we recommend you join OUR Chamber.

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