By KEVIN NEVERS

Now and then, in the 53-year history of the Chesterton/Duneland Chamber of Commerce—formerly the Chesterton, then the Westchester, then the Duneland Chamber of Commerce—a group of retail merchants feeling under-served or under-appreciated by the Chamber would bolt, to form its own organization specifically dedicated to the issues of small business: joint promotions, shop hours, parking, bad-check policy.

The Chamber and this shadow-chamber would co-exist peacefully for a year or two, each pursuing its own not necessarily incompatible ends, until the latter would quietly go defunct, only to be resurrected a year or two later when retailers would start chafing once again at the Chamber’s dues-to-benefit ratio.

Early this year history repeated itself, with the formation of the Duneland Business Initiative Group (DBIG). This time, however, disgruntled merchants are not the only ones joining and their brief is much broader than the nuts and bolts of retail. In fact, DBIG wants nothing less than to reinvigorate the whole of the Duneland community.

Its mission:

•“Creating a commonness in goals for the community and community-based business.”

•“Creating ideas and means of promoting the area and its businesses (retail, service, art, environmental, health, etc.).”

•“Assist in planning special events and festivals.”

•“Campaign to bring other businesses to the area.”

•“Help make Duneland a destination.”

As DBIG President Machelle Blount told the Chesterton Tribune, DBIG is actually a spin-off of the Chamber’s Retail Committee, which began meeting last summer. In January, though, a sense began to emerge that the Chamber was on the one hand too formal in structure and on the other lacked a certain responsiveness. “People don’t understand what the Chamber is there to do,” she said. “What their role is. . . . There’s definitely some areas they need to fix. More communication than anything. What do they offer their membership? I think even the membership is feeling that.”

The result was DBIG, whose looseness as an organization is to Blount’s way of thinking one of its great strengths. “It’s better to be loose and not as formalized,” she said. “I think it has more of a community feel. ‘Okay, I can make a difference,’ as opposed to structuredness. It’s been amazing in that kind of setting the outpour of what people’s comments are and thoughts.”

Initially DBIG was as much as anything else a forum to air complaints, Blount said. “Anything from ‘Nothing’s happening in town’ to ‘We lost the festivals we used to have, the Diana of the Dunes, the Oz Festival.’ People were asking, ‘How can we bring traffic into our stores? What can we do, what can we do? Is the solution a festival? Keeping stores open later?’”

But DBIG has also proved to be a support group for entrepreneurs in need of advocacy and information, for instance, in the matter of variances or permitting. “Let’s say I’m opening up a new business and I’m hitting this brick wall,” Blount said. “I’ve never done this before. Who’s supposed to be there to go ahead and guide me? We don’t have a mayor. We don’t have a town manager yet. . . . We’re able to direct a person to someone who knows the answers.”

Indeed, the other great strength of DBIG is the wide spectrum from which it draws its members: not only retail merchants but Chesterton officials, tourism officials, other Chamber members, and residents. Chesterton Town Planning Director Steve Yagelski regularly attends meetings, Blount said, and his participation has been a real eye-opener. “I enjoy having him because it’s always a different spin. It’s so easy to point fingers. Steve told us that they’ve been asking Downtown businesses to stay open for Friday night Movie Night for a very, very long time and they’re just not doing it. . . . Now we’re getting more of a pipeline of information going.”

Blount noted that DBIG is currently pursuing not-for-profit status.

Initiatives

DBIG’s most visible efforts, to date, have been the events in Thomas Centennial Park: Old-Fashioned Day in June, Bark in the Park in July, Taste of Duneland in August, the Flea Market this month, and the Art Tour in October. “We’re missing out on the festivals,” Blount said. “So we decided to go ahead and try to create something.”

But DBIG has other irons in the fire. “We hope to do more things for the businesses in regard to getting people in the door, foot traffic,” she said. “Maybe a ‘Whine About Winter’ campaign or a ‘Pub Crawl.’ I still believe that not only can you bring the tourism in during the summer months but bring it in in the winter.”

“We’re trying to work more with advertising,” Blount added, “establishing better relationships with newspapers, magazines. We’ve done a lot of radio advertising, that sort of thing.”

Blount also expects DBIG to become “heavily involved” in the branding efforts which tourism consultant Roger Brooks advocated in a presentation at the Porter County Visitors Center on Sept. 18. “We need to brand Chesterton,” she said. “Are we ‘The Gateway to the Dunes’? Are we Duneland? Are we Chesterton, Porter? What are we?”

Blount did say that a recent presentation to DBIG by Chamber President Mark Chamberlain and Managing Director Heather Ennis proved especially valuable. “I’ve got some very boisterous individuals who thought their presentation was very good. I’m glad they came, because there’s some stuff that we didn’t know they were working on. And their not being Chamber members, yeah, they probably wouldn’t know.”

DBIG meets at 7 p.m. on the first Wednesday of every month at the Porter County Visitors Center. Anyone is welcome to attend.

“We want to keep the Chamber in touch,” Blount said. “We want to keep the town in touch. Because there’s a lot of ‘I’m doing this and sitting and spinning and he’s doing the same thing and we’re not moving all together as one.’ That doesn’t make any sense. I think we all have pretty much the same ideas. So let’s make it happen.”

Posted 10/1/2008