Chamber of Commerce plans its annual banquet for May 2 at Northside Civic Center

Wednesday afternoon provided the first opportunity for the newly appointed executive director of the Chamber of Commerce and Evangeline Parish Tourism Commission to address the general membership.
Renee Brown’s first order of business during the meeting was to inform the members that “we are going to have a few new officers that will need to be voted on because we have two or three that are going to be coming off of the board.” She added, “Their term will be ending, so we will be gathering nominations for officers and will be voting on it in June.”
She also informed the chamber that its annual banquet will be held on Wednesday, May 2 at the Ville Platte Civic Center. “The speakers will be some of our local and home grown people Jack and Joe Willy Walker,” Brown stated. “They are going to be talking about the marketing industry, where things are moving, what we need to all be doing and putting into practice in our businesses to try and get the most information out to the public, and trying to also retain our businesses through marketing.”
Brown also announced hopes that there will be a live auction during the banquet that will be “one of our fundraisers for the chamber.”
In other business, Brown told the chamber about a new marketing opportunity involving Keep Evangeline Beautiful. “If you want to use the slogan, ‘Keep Evangeline Beautiful,’ the local media will not charge you extra for running it with a little ad or something.”
The new executive director also told the chamber about other new ideas such as a Website that will be a resource for corporate ideas and will also be a site for tourism information. Brown also has plans for a membership drive and a parish wide job fair.
“I also wanted to let you know my office is open and available,” Brown concluded. “Our hours are now from 9:00 to 4:00 Monday through Friday, and we are there for you. The tourism area has new things in the works. We are also looking at putting the chamber not only as the Ville Platte Chamber of Commerce but as the Evangeline Parish Chamber of Commerce so that it will be parish wide.”