Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Prairie Grove Chamber
PRAIRIE GROVE — The Prairie Grove Chamber of Commerce annual banquet included a review of accomplishments in 2018, with an overview of plans being made for the year 2019.
The Chamber now has an updated website and a new logo. A video posted on the website, titled “Small Town Done Right,” gives an overall picture of the community with many shots from local businesses in town.
“I think this is good, spotlighting what Prairie Grove is all about,” chamber President Dale Reed said about the website and video.
Reed added that Chamber officials discussed a new logo for a while before coming up with what they believe “expresses everything we want to show.”
The new logo has hills and valleys in the background with a silhouette of buildings in the foreground, representing a historical downtown surrounded by hills and valleys.
Reed said the logo uses features from different historical buildings in the downtown area. It doesn’t focus on just one building.
Events sponsored by the Chamber in 2018 included the Christmas parade, a bowling tournament, golf tournament, 2nd Saturday Trades Day activities, a forum for candidates running for the District 80 seat in the House of Representatives, Clothesline Fair parade, Shop Small promotion, ribbon cuttings for at least eight new businesses and being a partner with Main Street Prairie Grove and the Arkansas Downtown Network.
The Chamber increased its presence on social network and this included short videos on different businesses in town. Reed said the first videos were more trials to see what worked and what didn’t.
The plan is to eventually feature all the businesses that are Chamber members in one capacity or another.
“This will take time to get that accomplished,” he said.
Many of the events in 2018 will continue in 2019, such as the bowling tournament, Christmas parade and 2nd Saturday Trades Day.
Reed said the chamber will meet on a monthly basis, for the most part. Some of these meetings may have a speaker. Other times, the board may meet. Most of the meetings will tend to business and give an update on what’s going on within the chamber.
The Chamber will continue to advertise through print media, Facebook and other social media outlets.
It does plan to increase its use of social media to widen its audience, Reed said.
“We want to be more regional and promote Prairie Grove for business, shopping and living,” Reed said. “We want to bring more attention to Prairie Grove.”
One new idea is to consider going to trade shows to promote Prairie Grove outside the city. Another idea is to develop a downtown map to give out to visitors.
The Chamber is always looking for volunteers and Reed encouraged anyone who wants to volunteer to contact a board member or email the chamber at pginfor@pgchamber.com.