Chamber members to vote on affiliation
By Glenn Griffith CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. >> The Board of Directors of the Chamber of Southern Saratoga County has voted to affiliate with another area Chamber of Commerce. The final decision on whether to go forward will now be put to the Chamber’s member businesses.
Officials with the Chamber and the Capital Region Chamber earlier this year announced the two entities had formed a joint task force to look into affiliation.
In an announcement to the Chamber’s nearly 1,100 members President and CEO Pete Bardunias wrote that after conducting a membership survey, a focus group, and a due diligence review the boards of both entities had concluded it would be in the best interest of each as well as all the members the communities they serve if the two bodies moved forward with affiliation.
“Through integration, the Chamber of Southern Saratoga County would become an affiliate chamber and continue to present locally-focused program and provide issue advocacy at the local level,” Bardunias wrote his members. “The Capital Region Chamber would serve regional business interest and provide broad-based member services. Members would have access to more resources and services.”
By affiliating with the Capital Region Chamber and its 2,400 business members, Bardunias said the member businesses that belong to the Chamber will have a stronger voice for advocacy, member access to expanded resources, programs, councils, and committees, regional leadership, and expanded resources for business growth.
The Board of Directors of the Chamber voted in favor of affiliation on Sept. 11. The Board for the Capital Region Chamber voted in like fashion the following day.
“I strongly believe that the time has come to support our Board’s recommendation and move forward with this proposed affiliation,” Bardunias said in an email. “Given the circumstances of the southern Saratoga County business community and the challenges faced by chambers of commerce nationwide, it has been demonstrated that joining forces with such a powerful partner as is the Capital Region Chamber will give us the best opportunity to jump out of the gate in 2020 with a host of effective new programs, events and services for area businesses. We are committed to remaining the lead voice of business in southern Saratoga County and proud to be the official chamber of commerce of both Clifton Park and Halfmoon.”
The Chamber was formed in 1967 with 10 small business owners seated around a restaurant table in Halfmoon.
The Capital Region Chamber was formed as an umbrella organization in the spring of 2015 by the memberships of the Albany-Colonie Regional Chamber and the Chamber of Schenectady County to be a unifying force for regional business interests and to provide broad-based member services across the fourcounty area.
Matt Gratton, the Chair
Board of Directors, said some of the organization’s smaller businesses expressed concern the Chamber was being merged or subsumed and that it, as a separate entity, was disappearing.
“This is not the case at all,” Gratton said, “that’s why we held an information session on Sept. 24 and have another one scheduled for Oct. 2. That’s where we’ll explain the whole structure of the affiliation and how the Chamber become an affiliate board under the Capital Region structure.”
Gratton said the concern among the smaller Chamber members seems to have dissolved once the structure was explained.
Richard Sleasman, the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Capital Region Chamber said becoming an affiliate of the larger umbrella organization offers all the members an integration type of model.
“Members from both sides get an opportunity to network with more people in the Capital Region,” he said. “There are so many firms doing business in all eight counties in the Capital Region and they’re all looking for access to a much broader pool to do business with, to network with. That’s at the core of what the integration provides everybody.”
Sleasman agreed with Grattan in describing the benefits to affiliation while leaving the Chamber free to keep its identity and give members the local flavor on issues and events that they want.
“(Affiliation) gives them access to a much broader array of programs and services whether they are educational, advocacy, training or on an on,” he said.
He noted the Capital Region Chamber’s strong advocacy program where all the members are polled annually to come up with an agenda on issues that affect all businesses in our region.
“Then we advocate for those issues with our regional legislators be they state Senators or state Assembly people or the governor’s office,” Sleasman said. “We’re very active in that process, advocating at the higher level within state government on the bills and laws that are constantly being put forth out there. We give members a real voice at the state level and frankly the smaller Chambers just don’t have the voice or the depth of staffing to do that and that’s a huge benefit for members.”
If approved the affiliation with the Capital Region Chamber will go in effect Jan. 1.
There will be a discussion on affiliation for Chamber members from 3 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. Oct. 2 at the Clifton Park-Halfmoon Library, 475 Moe Road, Clifton Park.
Chamber members have an opportunity to vote on affiliation by proxy via mail, fax, or email or in person at 5:15 p.m. Oct. 10 at Bryant & Stratton College, 2452 Route 9, 2nd Floor, Malta.