The Greene County Chamber Board met Wednesday for its regular monthly session.

Treasurer Keith Peterson said that they are still operating in the negative at about $900, but he added that since they’ve started the year, they were at $15,000 in the red.  He pointed to their ability to make the right cuts to the budget and have handled the finances very well this year.

Jefferson Matters: Main Street Program Director Alan Robinson gave an update to the Board following an annual review with Main State Iowa staff.  He said the review went well.  He pointed out that they needed to work on better direction for the program’s four committee divisions of organization, promotion, design and business improvement.  Another area for improvement is communicating developments with the public better and establishing new volunteers, committee members and board members.

Then Chris Henning and Ben Yoder updated the Board on the welcome center.  They were planning on applying for a Challenge Grant for the maximum amount of $75,000.  Yoder added that they will be looking for more grant funds as well as starting some fundraisers to help match the cost of the grant.  He believes that the inside work for the welcome center will not start until the end of 2014.

The Board approved the official position and an initial job description for the head of the chamber as Executive Director and Tourism Coordinator.

In other business, the Board approved to remove eight businesses from its membership.  Those include:  Absolute Therapeutic Massage, Cyclists of Greene County, Gallup House, Janice’s Handmade Creations, Pamida, TMC Construction, UpTown Cafe and Tupperware with Shawna Lee.  Then the Board approved two new businesses for membership which included Greene County News On Line and Bee Mindful in Scranton.