By Korie Marshall
Valemount’s Chamber of Commerce is taking a new direction, with a new website design and a new monthly electronic newsletter, replacing the community fanout.
“Our new direction is a work in progress – so bear with us as we work out the kinks,” says Marie Birkbeck, secretary treasurer for the non-profit association. The website went live at the end of August, and the inaugural edition of the newsletter went out in late August as well.
The old fanout announced events in and around Valemount for almost five years. “We found that it is has been highly ineffective and under-utilized as people rely more and more on social media to advertise their movie nights, bottle drives, lemonade stands, or what have you,” says Birkbeck. “As a volunteer service organization, we simply do not have enough time to search out and hunt down events to add to our weekly fan-out and on-line community events calendar, so the calendar too is being disabled.” She says the Chamber hopes that another organization or individual will pick up the project.
Replacing the fanout will be a new monthly electronic newsletter, focused on the Chamber itself and activities of its members. Birkbeck says the newsletter will include some local events, but only those organized by the Chamber and its members.
Late August was the last edition of the fanout. Members of the Chamber and anyone who wants to subscribe to the newsletter can receive it by contacting [email protected]. Birkbeck says new Canadian anit-spam legislation prohibits sending the newsletter to email addresses that have not given express permission.
