COVID-19 has brought extreme financial hardship to many small businesses over the past year-and-a-half, and some, unsurprisingly, did not survive. What comes as more of a shock is the notion that a local Chamber of Commerce, whose mission is to provide networking and other services to small businesses, might also go under. But in New Paltz, that is precisely what has happened. On August 12, the New Paltz Regional Chamber of Commerce posted a “message to our membership” on its website, announcing its intent to dissolve “because of financial hardships resulting from the pandemic.”
“The Chamber has been in a declining financial state for some time, and due to the COVID pandemic the major fundraising events that the Chamber relied on were not possible. With the timing of returning to ‘normal’ uncertain, this also hindered our ability to bounce back with limited capital,” reads the somber announcement.
The 66-year-old organization describes the problem as going deeper than a national health emergency that will eventually pass, however. The very business model on which Chambers of Commerce are predicated has been in flux for some years, and membership has been in decline. According to the New Paltz Chamber’s Board of Directors, “the way our community and our country conducts business is changing. With the continued evolution of technology and social media, this has changed the way in which businesses network, market and obtain information. This alone has certainly made an impact on participation and membership over the last several years, and even more in this year of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
According to an article in Inc. magazine dated July 24, 2020, the disappearance of small regional Chambers of Commerce is an alarming trend that was already noticeable more than a year ago, although few of them wanted to talk about it publicly. Many members couldn’t afford to continue paying dues, and the organizations didn’t qualify for federal COVID relief assistance on account of their lobbying function. And when it became clear that networking could easily be done using virtual platforms when live networking events such as monthly Chamber breakfasts became unsafe, the incentive to sustain membership was weakened.
If Chambers of Commerce are an idea whose time has come and gone, there are still a raft of services and events they provide that communities are going to miss. In New Paltz, popular initiatives created by the Chamber include the New Paltz Regatta, New Paltz Clean Sweep, the Regional Business Expo, the Taste of New Paltz, the New Paltz Challenge, the Community of Peace Art Project, the Huguenot Young Professionals & Entrepreneurs and the Wisdom of Women. According to the board, “Most of these programs will continue unimpeded under the guidance of other organizations in the community.”
Former board chair Sheila Gilday elaborated somewhat on this vague promise when asked by HV1 for more specifics. “As part of our dissolution, we have to give our remaining assets to nonprofit agencies after our debts have been paid. Those assets include our committees, events and then any remaining funds. We have been reaching out and working with some local organizations that have expressed interest in taking those on.
“Our first transfer will be for the Chamber’s Wisdom of Women (WOW), which focuses on women’s leadership and empowerment, to One Epic Place, who we are also working with on their Visitors’ Center. The co-founders Julie Robbins and Nicole Langlois of One Epic Place have been past chairs of the WOW committee and dedicated volunteers, and our executive team believe it’s the perfect new home for it. We expect that to be finalized in the coming weeks.
“Our other signature events, because of their larger scope and logistics, like the Taste of New Paltz and the New Paltz Challenge, will take a little longer to finalize. But I assure you, they will be going to some very deserving organizations.”
Robbins and Langlois, both of whom have been active Chamber members for many years, confirm that One Epic Place will be taking on a number of former New Paltz Chamber functions. Their operation, headquartered at 122 Main Street, has already expanded its lease to include the entire Pine Professional Center next door at 126 Main. Most of this building will be leased out as temporary office space, but what Robbins calls “a small space in the front of the building” has already been designated as the replacement for the Visitors’ Center formerly run by the Chamber further uptown and set to open on October 7. Managed by One Epic Place staff, it will be “mainly focused on tourist visitors,” she says, but also provide easily accessible resources for startup businesses and professionals relocating to New Paltz. A freestanding website, New Paltz Visitors’ Center Hosted by One Epic Place, is currently in development.
As for the social mixers and networking events for local business-owners that used to be the Chamber’s main calling card, One Epic Place has been in the process of taking over that function for some time now. As COVID winds down, the lawn at 122 Main is once again hosting monthly gatherings called Hudson Valley Community Coffee, and you don’t even have to be a dues-paying One Epic Place member to attend.
While “saddened to learn of the dissolution of the New Paltz Chamber,” its not-for-profit arm, the Regional Chamber of Commerce Foundation at New Paltz, has weathered the pandemic in much better shape, and plans to continue handing out scholarships to local students as separate entity. “With the loss of the Chamber, our Foundation has some decisions to make. We have steadily been growing our scholarship programs and our fundraising to record levels. This past year, the Chamber Foundation awarded over 20 scholarships to graduating high school seniors and adult-learners totaling over $20,000. We want to continue doing this in our community for years to come,” Foundation president Teresa Thompson informs HV1. “The Chamber Foundation is now in the process of considering all of our options moving forward as an organization. We will be meeting at the end of August to decide exactly how we will accomplish this task. We have an excellent group of talented and motivated volunteers at the Chamber Foundation, and we are excited to continue the mission of providing educational opportunities to our community.”
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