The Greenfield Area Chamber of Commerce and the Northern Hancock Area Chamber of Commerce are merging into the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce.
Retta Livengood, president of the Greenfield chamber, presented on the planned merger at Fortville’s Aug. 19 town council meeting, presenting it as better representation for the businesses of the largely inactive northern Hancock chamber. Current members of the northern Hancock chamber will be grandfathered in for the rest of 2024 but would have to renew their membership with the Hancock County chamber at the beginning of 2025.
The main benefits for businesses formerly in the northern Hancock chamber, according to Livengood, will be the increased opportunities for marketing and networking.
“[Fortville and McCordsville businesses] haven’t had support and representation from a chamber of commerce for several years now. We can begin to offer that support,” Livengood said. “Helping them market themselves with a weekly email newsletter, we can become an advocate if they need a voice with local government or other businesses and really just help with the networking and marketing of their business.”
The new merged chamber is currently working on a logo, which it hopes to have finished by the end of this week. Once the logo is finalized and released, the name change will become official alongside it.
The plans for this merge began last November, when members of the northern Hancock chamber approached leadership within the Greenfield chamber, and plans for the merge were finalized in May. Since then, representatives of the Greenfield chamber have had face-to-face conversations with all four county school superintendents as well as town councils and managers around Hancock County.
The New Palestine Chamber of Commerce was approached about joining the newly formed county chamber, but according to both Livengood and Marte McCloud, program coordinator for the New Palestine Chamber of Commerce, the New Palestine chamber decided to remain an independent organization.
“We’re going to continue with our own chamber meetings and not join [the county chamber] for the reason of the travel time that our current memberw would be exposed to,” McCloud said. “Typically, our members try to attend a meeting on their lunch hour, and it’s right here in New Pal. [Travelling to county chamber meetings] would probably add an hour of commute time for most people that attend our meetings.”
McCloud did say, though, that the New Palestine chamber plans to participate in county chamber activities and events whenever possible, and Livengood said that the county chamber planned to invite the New Palestine chamber to “anything and everything” that the new chamber does.
Tonya Davis, president of the Fortville town council, says she’s glad that the town’s businesses will now have better representation. “I think it will be a good thing,” Davis said. “We’re not being represented at all right now, so anything in the right direction is good.”
Currently, all chamber events are hosted in Greenfield, but following the merge, Livengood says she hopes to expand the locations of those events, bringing them to the rest of the county.
