Greater Valley Independent Business Alliance put focus on local - American Independent Business Alliance AMIBA

4/29/2007

Groups mixing business, pleasure

JERRY LYNOTT/Times Leader

Kingston has one. So does Plymouth. The Back Mountain has had one for years.

South Wilkes-Barre just joined the growing list of area business associations and alliances.

Though diverse in name and size, the groups share the common purposes of preserving the livelihoods of their members and supporting their host communities.

Changing demographics, a mobile society and the emergence of national chain stores and restaurants have made it harder on the small businesses that populate Main Streets and neighborhoods.

“That’s what we’re fighting,” said Ed Vnuk Sr., president of Plymouth Alive.

Vnuk, owner of the Sport-Jes store on Main Street, and other members of the four-year-old group have taken it upon themselves to revitalize the West Side borough through annual festivals and holiday programs.

The group’s signature event, The Kielbasa Festival, has grown each year and attracted worldwide attention thanks to an article in “Meat International,” a magazine published in the Netherlands, Vnuk said.

“People know we’re here,” he said.

It’s that kind of effort that’s needed for survival and among the activities Jeff Milchen enumerates for alliances going up against competitors with bigger advertising budgets and buying power.

Last year Milchen, co-founder of the American Independent Business Alliance, in Bozeman, Mont., led a forum at The Lands at Hillside Farms on supporting hometown businesses. The event was sponsored by the Kingston Area Merchants and Professionals Association and the Tudor Bookshop and Café.

“There’s hard work involved,” Milchen said.

Alliances benefit from strength in numbers, he said. Together the members can build a powerful brand, market as one and buy advertising as a group.

To get their message out, he said, they should conduct ongoing public information campaigns, much like Plymouth Alive and the other groups.

Lastly, the group must create a unified presence in the community for its own benefit and that of the local media and government.

How the AMIBA member groups put in practice the basic tenets varies, Milchen said. A one-size-fits-all approach is hard to apply when the communities in which members are located range in size from several thousand residents to a major metropolitan area. Nationwide there are 35 affiliated Independent Business Alliances and more being added each year.

“This was an unknown concept 10 years ago,” he said.

Milchen stressed that alliances can co-exist with their bigger competitors. “There’s certainly a place for chains in some communities.” But those communities should “think very hard” whom they want to invite in, he said.

Shoppers should also think hard about where they spend their money, added Don Roskos, chairman of the board of the Greater Valley Independent Business Alliance. The group, created in December, has members from Shickshinny to the Back Mountain.

“I frequent my own little hardware store in Dallas,” Roskos said. If he needs help locating an item, he’s directed quickly to it and the customer service is usually better than at a big box store, he said. “You’re going to develop a relationship with a local vendor.”

Shopping locally not only supports the businesses, it feeds the larger local economy. The people working in the shops and stores and offices live in the community, send their children to local schools and pay taxes.

“I live here. All the money that I make pretty much stays here,” said Lynn Gonchar, Tudor Book store owner and a member of the Kingston Area Merchants and Professionals Association.

Getting people to understand the importance of local businesses is a big part of the Greater Valley’s existence. The alliance is here to “raise consumer awareness of local independent businesses and the power each consumer’s purchases have to impact their community,” Roskos said.

The organization works in tandem with the Back Mountain Business Association, which has been around since 1992. The association has undergone a name change since then, but the membership has been constant. “It’s still business owners and professionals,” said Beth Ann Delaney, association president.

Each month the association’s members meet. They also are apprised of events by e-mail and they can access the association’s Web site which contains the monthly newsletter.

“We try to do what we can to support their business growth,” Delaney said.

New to the game, the South Wilkes-Barre Business Alliance has been taking baby steps. “But they were exciting baby steps,” said Rick Gazenski, an alliance organizer.

Tonight it will take a “giant leap,” he said, when the alliance holds a “Meet the Candidates” program in preparation for the May 15 primary election.

“It is our first communitywide event,” Gazenski said. The program is scheduled to run from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Firwood United Methodist Church at Old River Road and Dagobert Street.

Like the other organizations, the alliance is non-political. It does, however, want elected officials to know of its presence.

The organization had been on Gazenski’s mind for a while before its formation last year. He and optometrist Brian O’Donnell, members of the South Wilkes-Barre Rotary, wanted to do something “to keep our area vibrant,” Gazenski said.

The response to date has been “overwhelming,” yet there is room for more members with more ideas. Citing a quote he attributed to J. Paul Getty, Gazenski said, “I would rather have one percent of 100 people’s effort than 100 percent of my own.”

Fair Use Notice
This site occasionally reprints copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We make such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of issues and to highlight the accomplishments of our affiliates. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is available without profit. For more information go to: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.