By Laura Mazur
Community Post
Jim Coons, executive director of the Southwestern Auglaize County Chamber of Commerce, took some time to update Minster Council last week on the progress of the chamber.

The nine-member board of directors for the chamber held a long-range planning session last week in which they identified goals of completing and launching a renovated Web site, as well as focusing attention on educating the public on the benefits of shopping locally.
“The board feels that our Web site will be a major asset for our members to develop additional business. The board also feels that the chamber is the best resource to promote the benefits and advantages of supporting local businesses,” explained Coons.
The chamber currently has 275 active members, many having been with the chamber since it began 10 years ago. Of these members, 78 percent of them are located in Auglaize County. The breakdown of membership includes 79 in Minster, 80 in New Bremen, 24 in New Knoxville, 31 in St. Marys and Wapakoneta, 25 in Mercer and Shelby counties and 36 in other parts of Ohio and Indiana.
Budgeting for 2008 is at approximately $95,000, which is supported by an estimated $74,000 in membership revenue and the balance from program and event revenue, photocopies and other sales.
“I'm proud to say that we have been very diligent to keep our accounts up to date and kept our membership revenues much more current than in the past,” said Coons. “Our expenses have been trimmed to make the best use of our members' investments, and with very few exceptions, we make our purchases from our chamber members.”
Coons also shared changes that have recently taken place within the chamber. Each of the villages of the Golden Triangle, Minster, New Bremen and New Knoxville, provided seed money for the chamber's start in 1998, as well as have provided annual support since. At the April board meeting of the chamber, members approved a reduction in village contribution, as the chamber has become more able to support itself. For the past years five years, Minster and New Bremen have each contributed $5,000 annually and New Knoxville, $1,500, based on chamber participation and population. These contributions have been reduced to $3,000 and $1,000, respectively.
Premiere Membership was also eliminated in April, due to it being unused by the majority and difficult to administer. The program gave certain benefits to members who contributed an additional amount each year. Members will all pay as they go now.
Construction is planned to begin in the summer of 2009 for a lock keeper's house in New Bremen, where the chamber office will relocate to after completion. Local matching funds are now being raised by the New Bremen Historic Association for this project.
The chamber has also enrolled in the Ohio Business Gateway to electronically pay state payroll taxes, school district taxes and other withholdings. Electronic transfers are additionally being set up for federal obligations and looking to handle some other regular payments electronically.

Highlights from the administrator’s report from last week's council meeting included:
A pre-construction meeting was held on May 1 for the Midway Drive Reconstruction Project. At the meeting, various details of the project were discussed and a construction schedule was presented by Coates Construction. Coates began work last week and expects to wrap up the project with paving the week of June 2.
The Water Department is working on renovations to the generator enclosure at Four Seasons Park. The current building will need to be altered for the larger generator. Most of the alterations will be done on the inside of the building with the outside looking relatively the same. The new generator has been delivered and is in storage at Buschur Electric.
The village has submitted a Transportation Enhancement Grant Application to ODOT. The grant application included a letter of commitment from ODOT to provide approximately $80,000 to the village for the reconstruction of the Fourth and Main intersection in conjunction with improvements made to Fourth Street. Grant award notification is expected between late August and early September.