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Why Join The Chamber

• To provide networking and promotional opportunities.
• To promote community and business interaction programs and events.
• To provide a resource for business information, materials and programs.
• To assess t he needs of business community, evaluate existing programs and events, develop new programs and events.
• To provide service and information to the community, newcomers and visitors.
• To coordinate and assist in events that creates a quality-of-life community atmosphere and promotes economic growth.

What is the Chamber of Commerce?
The Chamber of Commerce is the salesperson of a community and businesses that promotes products and services of our community. The organization is also a watchdog to protect the interests of the community. The benefit of belonging to a Chamber is full-time representation and year-round results.

What Do You Receive From the Chamber?
Members develop business contacts through association with successful business people in Chamber activities. The Chamber offers opportunities for personal growth and leadership experience by working with fellow members on civic and business affairs. The organization allows front line opportunity to work collectively for the benefit of the business and professional community on city, county and state level.

Members will feel a sense of pride and personal satisfaction in sharing in the achievement of the goals of the Chamber and ensuring Anamosa a better place to live and do business.

The prestige of your name on the Chamber's membership directory is visible proof that you believe in the community and are doing your share to help support and enhance the economy on which we all depend.

What Does the Chamber Do For Me?
The Chamber offers a blanket policy of community insurance. It ensures you that this organization is making certain to improve the local economy while you run your own business or profession. If someone calls for information and services in Anamosa, YOUR Chamber answers.

Anamosa Area Chamber of Commerce
YEAR IN REVIEW

Annual Meeting
The Annual Meeting is held late January. We bring motivational and informational speakers that typically can draw a crowd. This is a formal dinner that is moved around from year to year.  It is a great place to network with other professionals.

Home & Garden Show
This past years Home Show event was a huge success. We advertise this event in small newspapers in the area for weeks prior to the event. Master Gardeners offer workshops and promote the event on WMT Radio. This is a great place for businesses and services in the area to showcase the goods and services of local businesses. We see hundreds of out of town visitors, as well as local residents at this event. The Chamber continues to work to grow this event.

Spring Prayer Breakfast
The Anamosa Chamber sponsors a prayer breakfast on Good Friday each year. We draw a very large attendance from local residents and visitors to Anamosa. A different local minister is the guest speaker each year and another local minister gives the prayer. Musical and vocal entertainment changes from year to year.

Grant Wood Art Festival
The Grant Wood Art Festival is a wonderful tradition in Anamosa/Stone City. This is a juried art show and offers visitors quality of life experiences for those who attend.  This event brings creative cultural experiences and activities to our area. We showcase artists on Main Street, the GW originals at the library, theatre performances and offer creative workshops to visitors.  We stage musical performances throughout the day. Picnic dinners were served this past year. We offer antique tractor wagon rides for visitors needing easy transportation to the museums and library. This is a great family event that we do plan to grow and showcase in downtown Anamosa. The art, music and theatre is superb! This event promotes economic growth in our area.

Annual Golf Outing
Anamosa hosts a Golf Outing with Monticello every other year which brings people from Monticello to our area. On the opposite years, our organization plans to hosts this event to our members only. We are proud to showcase Anamosa’s fine golf courses.

Pumpkinfest
What a gorgeous weekend it was in Anamosa this year! The 20^th Annual Pumpkinfest and Ryan Norlin Pumpkin Weigh-Off is held the first weekend in October. This year brought thousands of people into Anamosa and broke attendance records. The World Weight Pumpkin contender missed the world record weight (1689) by 27 pounds at 1662 pounds at this festival in 2007. This event has grown so big that we receive national recognition from the media. These pumpkins put Anamosa on the map and have proven to the world that the Midwest can grow big pumpkins too. We feature almost 100 vendors on Main Street each year. We have one of the largest parades in Iowa with over 100 participants. We provide entertainment, activities and games throughout Saturday and most of Sunday. This event increases in size each year. It costs the chamber thousands of dollars to host. It also takes countless hours of preparation and planning. We averaged 197 hits a day on our website for this event year round and over 300 hits a day the month prior to…this is not to mention the hundreds of calls received. It is not unusual for the director to be talking on 2 phones and answer emails at the same time before this event. It is huge and brings much commerce to Anamosa. Business owners say this is their biggest sale day.

Community Breakfasts
Different member businesses host Community Breakfasts each month. These events are sponsored by the Chamber and bring a wealth of community information to those who attend. It is a great place to announce business or service information or additions. Members are able to network with other members.

Business-After-Hours
Member businesses are able to host BAH events monthly. This is a great place to showcase their business and offer networking opportunities to those who attend. These are very popular events for our members.

Ribbon Cuttings/Ground Breakings
The Chamber Ambassadors greet new businesses to Anamosa or relocation from current businesses with Ribbon Cuttings. This group also coordinates Ground Breakings for new parks, businesses and facilities. This is free publicity in the local paper and on our website for those who take advantage of these.

Cultural & Historical District
Anamosa was declared a Historical District late this summer.  The Anamosa Chamber of Commerce supports this project by coordinating and attending these meetings. This Committee has applied to be a cultural district and meets on a regular basis. Anamosa is fortunate to have in place all the assets needed for this type of district with museums, galleries, theatres, antique shops, winery and fine dining. The committee is working hard to bring a creative venue building into this district with studios, galleries and more to promote the artistic vibrancy of the community.  This project will increase tourism to Anamosa by providing a vibrant destination spot for our visitors and pride in our town for residents.

The committee plans to talk more with owners of businesses and buildings to maintain lines of communication. We are working with state offices for support to go forward on this effort. The Chamber hosts a web page for this project and posts information as it becomes available.

Communication

E-Mail
Members receive reminder notifications of events and happening in the community. They also receive legal information from the state to assist them with business requirements or notification of fraud or business support.

Website
The Anamosa Chamber posts a wealth of information to our website. We see an increase before our festivals or other events in Anamosa. Website visitors really like the Web Cam. As new information becomes available for different events, we post it. People looking for specific businesses and services utilize the business directory. We have separate web pages for GWAF and Pumpkinfest. We have a web page to post Ambassador events and another page to post the Cultural/Historical District project.  Members are able to post events on our calendar. We receive hundreds of emails every year requesting information for people traveling to Anamosa. We send out hundreds of information packets from inquiries that we receive from email and phone. We also host a “Welcome to Anamosa” page on our website to assist people who are looking to possibly relocate in Anamosa. We send out additional information to these people about our community.

The Chamber website has had over 18,000 hits so far this year.

Welcome Wagon
The chamber sends out postcards to newcomers for pick-up of Welcome Wagon packets every other month. Members only  are able to distribute information and promotional material in these packets.

Shop Anamosa Campaign
This campaign was featured on the front page of a Chamber of Commerce newsletter. We sent out an email to encourage members to use this logo and to shop local businesses and seek local services. We advertise on the front page of the busy bee to support business in Anamosa.  We continue to use our logo for recognition of this campaign in all of our advertising efforts. We are working with ED to get stats of shopping local benefits. When this is completed, we will have a web page for our members to educate them.

151 Sign
The downtown group met and we decided to go forward with the sign project. Prison Industries has taken our layout and given us a quote for this project. We have placed donation buckets around Main Street and collected several hundred dollars towards this project. We hope plan to put up 3 signs when completed.

Special Events
We work with local business members to coordinate special interest groups coming to visit.

We coordinate group events to promote our business members.

We distribute information about Anamosa at workshops, special events and points of interest in and out of town.

Dinner Theatre
The Chamber worked with Starlighter’s and some of our restaurant members to bring a dinner theatre to Anamosa this past year prior to the performance. This organization brings more out of town people to their events than residents.

E-Newsletter
The Chamber puts out a newsletter.  The newsletter is placed on our website to be downloaded. We feature a member showcase in each issue and provide readers with informative information that may assist businesses and our community.

Banners/Murals
Anamosa is known for our creativity. The Chamber feels fortunate to work with the High School Art Class to create and touch up as needed banners and murals for our downtown area. This is a great partnership and is admired by visitors to Anamosa. This project is another project that creates a vibrant Anamosa.