The Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce is alive, well and is looking forward to a bigger and better year in 2010.

That is the general assessment of board president Randy Penn and chamber director Colleen Mello.

“We have accomplished a lot this year and I feel we are stronger than we were at this time last year,” Penn said. “Our golf tournament and our annual gala were both successful and we reinstituted a luncheon to honor all the service clubs do for our community. We now have six of our seven board members who are Englewood business owners and want to be involved in the chamber activities and community events.”

Mello agreed.

“We are stronger but 2010 comes with new challenges,” she said. “I think the biggest challenge is to enlist new members. These are still tough economic times and business owners have to decide if they are going to spend money to join the chamber or perhaps spent that money on advertising or promotion to try to bring more customers to their business.”

After decades of being an established pro-business organization in the community, the Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce has gone through some turbulent times over the past couple years.

Two years ago, the chamber went dark for about the last three months of the year when the entire staff resigned.

Proponents got the chamber restarted and hired a new director. He resigned after a year and a new board was formed. The interim director worked hard but earlier this year, the decision was to go with Mello as the new director.

Penn, who had retired from Englewood Public Schools, agreed to head the board of directors and spent a lot of hours working on chamber projects.

“We were able to do some good things,” he said. “We worked out agreements so Englewood once again has a farmer’s market and we were co-sponsors for Englewood Days that drew a lot of people to the community.”

Looking ahead, Penn said the plan is to bring the farmer’s market back but to delay the opening until June 1.

“We also have almost completed work on an Englewood dining guide we hope to distribute by the end of January,” he said. “We also are working on an new business directory and hope to have the directory in people’s hands early in 2010.”

Other plans are to reinstate the student recognition luncheon and hold it in conjunction with the annual service club luncheon, he said.

“I think 2010 will be a good year for the chamber,” Mello said. “I am so encouraged by the involvement of our board of directors. They are volunteering to help with out projects and we are getting more involved with the community. Yes, I think 2010 could be a good year for the Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce.”