Host: Trinity County Chamber of Commerce;
Location: La Grange Café, 315 N Main St, Weaverville, CA
A wonderful lunch selection was provided by Trinity County Chamber at the La Grange Café

Attendees: Anderson: Debe Hopkins, Henry Bartolo; Burney: Bob Chibante; Fall River Mills: Ed Siegel, Gary Derenia, Steve Knock; McCloud: Ronda Elliott; Mt. Shasta: Marie Wells, Judy Silva; City of Shasta Lake: Terry Steele, Tim Juhasz (Guest from Shasta College); Weed: Jennifer Mehmen; Weaverville: Pat Zugg Ed Bates Trinity: Nancy Barnes, Jeannie Andriessen, Trina Stokley; Trinity County Supervisor: Jeff Morris and the Smart Business Resource Center: Inez Bays, Amanda Braxton

The meeting was opened with Ed Bates giving us an overview of the historical significance of our meeting site. This 152 year-old building is now home to the La Grange Café. - Thank you Ed! Pat Zugg, President of the Trinity and Weaverville Chambers welcomed us, and talked about their chamber's mission as a source for tourism and also provided a calendar of the upcoming July events in Trinity County.

The Rural Chambers presented Pat, as President of the Trinity Chamber, with a Certificate of Appreciation for hosting the meeting.

Introductions began with each person introducing themselves, their chamber affiliation, the name of their business and a brief explanation of what the Chamber means to them.

Some thoughts shared about the Chamber role and objectives were:

• Developing tourism, bringing awareness and promoting responsible growth.
• A way to help leverage existing assets to generate a strong local economy.
• Preserving cultural hub, while promoting tourism.
• Encourage those in outlying communities and light industries to relocate.
• Changing image and improve local businesses and services.
• A way to meet every one, exchange ideas and help promote reasonable growth.
• Promote small business success. No town can thrive if business community can't thrive.
• Developing tourism is a primary concern.
• Stay informed about what is going on in the community.
• Networking and encouraging involvement in community development, especially through tourism.
• Promoting chamber members, local businesses and local events.

Steve Knock, Fall River Mills- discussed the success of a Regional Chambers group that was in existence in the 1980s. It gave the smaller chambers some clout, because there's always strength in numbers. They had done effective lobbying to get some of their ideas and concerns recognized and considered on the state level. Steve suggested that we may want to think about looking to this concept and developing our own regional chambers. A common letterhead and address would be a great way to give us a solid identity and eventually have ourselves heard.

Everyone thought that this would be a good idea.

There was discussion on newsletter and website formats. Each chamber's newsletter and/or website are excellent. There is a lot of emphasis on tourism. The Mt. Shasta Chamber Community Partners Program has established the Community Legacy Fund to provide a funding resource to support projects and events beneficial to the Mt. Shasta community. Sponsorship awards of up to $1000 are available. The Mt. Shasta Chamber website has links to available grants. Inez has handouts of the available grants.

Rural Chambers' contact information: Please review the current contact list for changes. Please let Inez know of any additions or changes.

Group Discussion and Activity: Being a catalyst for economic development? The group was asked to answer these questions: Where is your community today as far as economic development? What do you want your community to look like in the future? How can your community effectively get there?

Economic concerns and ideas that were discussed:

• Things are growing, people are moving in, but a big problem is the infrastructure. We have to have the infrastructure in order to grow and be successful.
• We do not want to turn into a service-based community, because these are low paying jobs, but still have to fill that need and provide quality services. However, if you develop this industry there are many well-paying jobs behind the scenes.
• How do we replace the lack of the Natural Resources industry with other industries to sustain the economy?
• Ask self: why do the industries come here? Do we have good services? How are our educational programs? How do you keep young people in your community? How do you serve existing and growing retirees?
• How can we get the EDC involved in rural development?
• Chambers are more than a social club. It's to get people and businesses involved in their economic success. Chambers must be a voice to their government for the local people.
• Each rural chamber has different issues, which brings to the table different solutions.
• When discussing important issues like light industry coming in the community is completely split in their opinions. There are the people who don't want to change, those who want to change too fast, and those who want to change responsibly. But, then this area of responsibility is gray area too.
• The community should support existing industries and businesses, so that they can expand and strengthen the local economy. One way is to work with the educational system to develop educational awareness to support existing industries. This also would help bring and keep the Youth within their community.
• What is good for my community? It's good to retrain the old and attract the new. The chambers must address the issue of identifying your community's assets and develop them. A good way of doing this is to work with other local agencies (IE. Schools, RCD…).
• There seems to be a lot of hopes, but no control over them. Must define what you are in control of and run with it. Do not base your hopes on something you cannot control.
• Through an independent grant Trinity County will be able to work with community volunteers and local businesses to revitalize Main Street. This will require a lot of community support and involvement. Will help make the community more attractive to all.
• We do need to retain our good youth, but have a difficult time if only have minimum wage jobs. So, how do we increase the non-entry level tourism jobs? You must always try to hire locally for non-minimum wage jogs. Usually upper management comes from outside, try to hire this locally. How do we find the winners for these jobs? We must try to train locally and be active with the youth to help develop a sense of responsibility and goals. Could get involved in the H.S. career day, in order to have that vital contract with the educators.

It's a surprise what grants you may be eligible for. It you want a copy of the grant money that will be available in early 2007 you can go to the following site: www.stewardshipcouncil.org

Words of advice:
Our chambers are stronger in numbers, so we should try to develop a common letterhead and work as a whole on the state level. We need to think of a name on the letterhead that would be more inclusive: Rural Chamber of Commerce: Northern Division. Inez will work on some ideas and email them for feedback.

Hope to get back on schedule for the next meeting…Late September - Weed has offered to host, as McCloud, Burney…..Great meeting everyone, thank you for your participation.

Photographer and notetaker: Amanda Braxton - Smart Business Resource Center.