Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce unveils updated website

Reports of the demise of the Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce have been greatly exaggerated, and the latest version of their website is a key part of the plan to reinvigorate the business organization.

The new, updated website went live in early February after about a year in development. It marks the fourth iteration of the LVCC website since 2013.

The decision to once again revamp the chamber website stemmed from ongoing difficulties in keeping the last site updated, the ease with which mistakes in updating could impact the site more broadly and it's lack of functionality across devices.

"We wanted to have a more robust website that had e-commerce abilities and also was a better fit for all devices," said LVCC president Laurie Welty. "This one you can pull up on your smart phone and navigate through it."

She said the last website was more cumbersome and built on an older framework

"This one is a little more graphics based, a lot more image based; it's a little more relevant."

Victor Johnson volunteered to develop the new website using the online Wix platform. The goal was to have it live last fall, but complications along the way pushed that back.

"We were really hoping to have this up by the fourth quarter of 2023 so we could hit the ground running in December of 2023, looking at 2024 memberships, and it just didn't happen," Welty said.

"It was just a matter of getting all the stuff put together," Johnson said. "The big impediment in the middle was just changing the domain name. We had to submit multiple credentials, prove who we are. Then we were able to get in, then we were able to move the domain over to point to the new website."

The new website looks a bit sparse at the moment, due in part to the decline in chamber membership over the last couple of years.

"It's gonna be a work in progress for quite a while, but the chamber will host the website for your member organization," Johnson said. "if you've got your own stuff like Facebook it will vector it up there.The thing that is open to everybody is the events calendar. That's a public thing that anybody can submit to and get stuff in there"

"Our businesses have a lot more opportunity to include links to their own website, or restaurant menus, more unlimited availability for photographs, that type of thing," Welty said. "It's a better way of advertising for the businesses, in my opinion. And I think they'll see the value in that."

Although many local businesses turned to Facebook pages like Lincoln Live to advertise locally, Welty pointed out those pages are more of a local conversation, whereas the chamber website is often the first place people from outside the area visit when planning to recreate or vacation here.

"The chamber website is what's going to provide the list of events throughout the year. It's all in one place," Welty said."If they plan to eat out while they're here, they'll have (access) to the restaurants who use the website to advertise. It's a great advertising tool and it's more geared to outside of the community than inside the community,".

She said they've made businesses aware that the new site is up and running through their mailing list, but believes they will also need to contact businesses individually to make sure they know what it can do for them. Additionally, some of the businesses that paid in anticipation of having the new website up last year will have their 2024 membership dues waived.

The LVCC has had a website since 2003, when Nyle Howsmon create it under the lincolnmontana.com domain name. It was revamped in 2013, with Heather Terman as webmaster. Following Terman's death in 2014 maintenance of the website again waned over time, and by 2019 it became clear they needed something new. The board hired Dennis Duenas to revamp the site to include a number of upgrades, a new look and the ability of trained business owners and admins to make updates. However, the Wordpress architecture it was built on proved to be difficult for individuals who didn't work with it regularly.

Welty hopes the improved functionality of the website will help draw businesses back to the chamber, which has seen its memberships "fall off the map" since the COVID pandemic.

In fact the LVCC, which has been a mainstay for the Lincoln business community since 1968, nearly folded in February 2023. At the time, donations had bottomed out during the COVID 19 pandemic, there was a significant lack of community volunteers and no one had come forward to fill the four empty board seats.With term expirations and a resignation on the horizon for the remaining three, the board was expected to cease to exist. However after Jill Frisbee, Erin Dey and Justin McDonough agreed to fill seats on the board, Welty chose to stay on for an abbreviated term.

"I wanted to see this website thing through, and I've committed in my mind to getting a healthier membership through the new website," she said. "That just wasn't the sort of thing I was willing to let go."

Welty noted that rebuilding the Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce will definitely require getting people to step up and take on leadership roles within the organization, including her own since she's not planning to remain on the board for another year. "I'm unable to do that. There have been some changes in my schedule, my life. I need somebody else to step up and do that."

With the website in place, Welty said her other big priority is to ensure the Independence day parade and fireworks show both take place again this year. However, without improved membership, that could be in doubt.

"There is overhead and that doesn't even touch fireworks and the parade or anything else that goes on," she said, noting she recently received the insurance premiums for 2024 "We have to have enough membership to maintain those fixed costs or you can't operate. I don't know of anyone willing to operate without insurance."

With so many unknowns going into 2024, Welty is certain of one thing: the Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce will only exist if the businesses maintain their memberships. "They are the chamber."

The next Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m., April 11 at theLincoln Library.