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By PENNY FLETCHER
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John Luper, director of amenities at Club Renaissance in Sun City Center, is used to taking care of day-to-day operations in his office. He expects his job to require him to wear a dozen different hats.
But now he’s also wearing several hats associated with daily tasks at the Sun City Center Area Chamber of Commerce and he says this has given him a whole new respect for those who work – or have worked– in the two paid staff positions at the chamber.
Since June 7, when the chamber’s president of the last 10 years, Elaine Brad, quit to marry Joe Cavaliere of Lexus of Tampa Bay, John, as chairman of the chamber’s board, has taken on many of the chamber’s regular operational tasks.
“It’s one thing to know there’s a person in charge going places, meeting people and MCing the monthly luncheons, and quite another to be doing a lot of those things yourself,” Luper joked during a recent interview in his office. “I don’t know what I’d do without Vicky Brown.”
Vicky, who is the chamber’s office manager, has been filling in as interim director but that still leaves John with a lot of extra duties that he says are much easier to assign than perform.
“Elaine gave us plenty of notice, but she had been there so long, and had done such a good job, we really had to step up when she left,” John said.
A few years back the chamber decided to follow the lead of many large chambers across the nation and change the name of the position of the executive director to “president” and also change the title which had been “president of the board” (a volunteer position) to chairman of the board.
Penny Fletcher Photo
John Luper, director of amenities at Club Renaissance in Sun City Center, has a new respect for the person performing the duties of president of the Sun City Center Area Chamber of Commerce since he has been doing a lot of those things himself. Elaine Brad, chamber president for 10 years (a paid position) recently quit to get married and John, as board chairman (which is volunteer) has been doing a lot of jobs he used to assign.
So although most people in the area continued to refer to Elaine as executive director of the chamber, for the last few years, she was actually president, although her duties (and paid status) did not change.
John said things had always run so well they didn’t want to make changes in the mission or duties of the staff.
“But this is the time to look at how the position, and possibly the duties involved with the position, may have changed in the last 10 years,” he said. “Elaine was very detailed. She had an accounting background. But maybe now, we may need a different kind of president. We’re looking at options- like hiring out the bookkeeping and moving some of the office work, and maybe giving the new president more face-to-face duties in the larger community.”
Where it is the job of every chamber member to interface with all factions of the community, John says the board is looking at more of a public relations type position than ever before.
“We could restructure any way we see might be necessary for the future without disrupting a well-running machine,” he said. “This community does a lot of things that many other communities don’t, like bringing political candidates in so we don’t have to do that, while some other area chambers do. We’re in a good place because even in this economy we’re managing to pay our bills and our membership has remained status quo.”
Membership has been around 350 for several years, he said.
Jim Wilmouth at Encore Bank has been taking applications and has about nine under consideration now but is accepting more.
“We’re getting people with all different backgrounds,” John said. “It is a very exciting time, because with each one, we look at what the new priority might be that this person would fit.”
One thing that kept coming up was the word “friendly.”
“Everybody says they need to be a friendly face in the community. A learning curve toward their duties will also be important. We can’t afford to be risk-takers at this time,” he said. “It’s not as if we can afford to invest a lot of time and money on things that we don’t know will work.”
The board is also looking for someone who will want to work with, and educate, the members as to what is available to them through their chamber.
One thing John knows will be revamped is the chamber’s Web site.
“Somehow, we want to figure out a way to make it more of a link-up to everything in the area. When out-of-towners want to find out about Sun City Center, they check out the chamber Web site. Well, if we have links to other things in the area, then we can be a real resource for a lot of people, and that doesn’t just mean members’ businesses, but entertainment, local attractions, many things need to be involved.”
At the end of our informal talk, John said he had learned more about the duties involved in running the daily operations of the chamber in the last three months than he had in the 7 years he has been involved in a leadership capacity.
“Now I can really appreciate the work they do on the front lines,” he said. “And I certainly hope the board meets its target goal and has someone on board (as the new president) by the third week in October.
It is not too late to apply.
I wondered what the Sun City Center chamber had been up to these last few months.
Well, now we know.
*Perhaps you have something you’d like to share. Or maybe you’d rather tell the community about your favorite charity or cause: or sound off about something you think needs change. That’s what “Over Coffee” is about. It really doesn’t matter whether we actually drink any coffee or not (although I probably will). It’s what you have to say that’s important. E-mail me any time and suggest a meeting place. No matter what’s going on, I’m usually available to share just one more cup.
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