Blogs

Oct

Ultimate Chamber Mergers

Mick Fleming on Sunday, October 2, 2011 at 12:00:00 am

At a meeting with the World Chambers Federation board of directors this weekend, I learned that all of the dozens of chambers in the Netherlands are being forced to merge into one. The number of chambers in France is being cut by a third. These are countries in which membership in compulsory by law. In Spain, the government recently ruled that the chambers would no longer receive the money companies had been paying for the last couple of hundred years for chamber membership. The State would keep (thank you very much) the "tax", leaving the chambers with about 40% of their revenue, provided they can keep program income flowing in.

I recall a number of folks telling me over the years that running a public-law chamber would be so easy because they wouldn't have to work on membership retention. I'm wondering, however, if perhaps a chamber operating where the government requires membership really only has one member?