A Message from Nathan Hinch
Chairman of the Board
Dear Members,
The Chamber Board of Directors and staff have been working diligently on your behalf, and for the benefit of our community. As Illinois moves into Phase 4 of the Restore Illinois framework, and in light of the upcoming holiday weekend, we have an important message to share. 

In May I issued a letter to members regarding the Chamber’s position and communications with Governor Pritzker’s office about the business reopening plans. While we did not achieve everything we sought, we were pleased that Governor Pritzker acknowledged our correspondence and made some changes to Restore Illinois in response to the concerns and suggestions we raised. We are now about to move into Phase 4, allowing businesses to further move toward reinstatement of normal operations. We continue to work closely with our local municipalities and to advocate to the State on our members’ behalf. 

We were all extremely disturbed by the recent deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and others. The Board of Directors, as Chamber members, are members of the McLean County community like everyone else and consider the common good for the community to be an integral goal aligned with the Chamber. To be clear, what is good for McLean County and Bloomington-Normal is good for business and the Chamber. To be even more clear, Black Lives Matter to the Chamber. We were supportive and impressed with the peaceful protests organized by local charitable and community organizations, and with the response of local law enforcement. For the most part, these efforts were peaceably done while clearly communicating the critical importance that we all must do better in this regard, the Chamber included. The Chamber Board of Directors considers diversity and inclusion to be an essential best practice for business as well as a common good. We discussed this at our June board meeting and are working on further efforts in this regard. The Chamber board, like our membership, is blessed with a diverse representation of people and businesses from a variety of different backgrounds and perspectives. Diversity should be one of our strengths, and something we will continually strive to maintain and improve. 

We were also very impressed with how our members and other businesses, churches, and charitable organizations, came together to show support and help those persons and businesses who were affected by looting and vandalism. While it is unfortunate that this happened here, the fact that it did shows the severity of the issue and that Bloomington-Normal is not immune. At the same time, we see considerable positive signs and reasonable justification for hope for the future, which may differ from other communities we see on the nightly news. 

The Chamber is also proud to be a part of the #CommUNITYConfident initiative. The goal of #CommUNITYConfident is to help businesses provide a common set of guidelines based on local and national rules or recommendations, and further, to help provide consumer confidence that our member businesses are doing everything we can to make sure health and safety are protected, and that “open for business” does not mean a disregard for customers’ health and safety. If you have not already done so, please review the initiative and consider signing on to the pledge, found at community-confident.com

We encourage you to work together in support of local businesses and the continued re-opening of our community as we move into Phase 4. The past few months have been incredibly hard. Make no mistake, we have no rose-colored view that July will bring a return to normal nor that the pandemic is entirely behind us for good. But there is good news and hope to be found, because of who we are together. There is hope when protesters peacefully assemble on the courthouse grounds, when police officers and protesters meet and kneel in solidarity together and engage in open dialogue, and when churches, community groups, and fellow businesses volunteer to help vandalized places of business in their time of need.

There is also hope when we as a community work together to support our local businesses who have been so hard hit economically. We have seen first-hand over the last few months a new unity to support small businesses, such as local restaurants when they had to close or modify operations. The phrase “curb side, carryout and delivery” is now top of mind when thinking about where to eat. In phase 4, as more local businesses work hard to adapt, recover, and re-employ their people, we must continue to show our local, loyal support. A lack thereof easily translates to a longer recovery, store closures, higher unemployment, and the inability to re-engage in philanthropy; a result we would reasonably assume no one would endorse or respect.

Unfortunately, our Board of Directors has been made aware of a list circulating entitled “businesses to boycott.” While we will privately do our due diligence about this serious issue, we would remind you that now more than ever is a time to support all local businesses. The unintended consequences of anything different are significant, especially at a time of economic recovery.

As we enter a holiday weekend celebrating the freedoms of our great nation, let’s pull together for the full and safe reopening of all businesses, keeping aligned the common goals of public good and public health, and good business. And let us finally and particularly be attuned to helping others, renewing our commitment to listen and serve the needs of those around us.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, we thank you for making an investment in our community, in your people, and in our organization. Together we are the UNITY in our CommUNITY, where a win for one is a win for all. 

Nathan B. Hinch
Chairman of the Board
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