UPDATE August 29, 2023: Mary Kate Feeney of Bay State Racing LLC states that their membership in the Greater Gardner Chamber of Commerce has been reinstated and the problem was technical. Rebecca Marois, CEO of the Greater Gardner Chamber of Commerce responded to our inquiry: “Following standard Chamber of Commerce protocol, when a provisional member does not pay their dues, their membership is terminated.” Publisher note: We feel Chamber CEO Rebecca Marois was not transparent in this matter with us, obviously did not notify the member that their membership was no longer active, and created a PR problem by not being straight with us up front. Marois sent us a rather childish email which we will not print here.
Attached is a pdf of the membership listing which was active until recently. The graphic shows a google search documenting the listing was in google’s search database until sometime on August 28, 2023.
What’s Going On?
Gardner Chamber CEO says they are not a member. Bay State Racing LLC says they are a member, paid their membership fee, were approved by the Board of Directors in July, and have not been notified to the contrary.
Bay State Racing LLC Chamber Membership Terminated
Bay State Racing LLC has been a member of the Greater Gardner Chamber of Commerce. We asked, “As I always do my research prior to putting something in an article, I captured a pdf of their membership listing which I have attached. (That was on 8-15-23) Were they a provisional member or did they decide they no longer wanted the membership or were they rejected, just want to get the facts correct.” According to President and CEO Rebecca Marois, the membership was provisional. She stated, “Yes, they were a provisional member…”
It is unclear whether the decision to end the membership was made by the Chamber of Commerce or Bay State Racing LLC. We have asked the following question of the Chamber through an email to Rebecca Marois, “Before I report on this, I want to get it exactly right. For my readers, can you explain how a provisional membership works and how it is terminated. Was this at the request of Bay State Racing LLC or a decision of the Chamber of Commerce?” We have emailed the Chamber CEO for clarification with no further response. On the morning of August 29, 2023, we spoke with Mackenzie Fitzsimmons, Member Relations Coordinator and asked whether the Board of Directors had rejected the application or whether Bay State Racing had terminated it. She said, “Let me check on that and put us on hold.” She then told us that she was not authorized to provide that information, only Rebecca could. According to her, the CEO is at a conference today. We will update this article if we receive a response. However, in the application for a Chamber membership it states, “Your investment in the Chamber becomes effective with the completion of this application, payment of your investment as defined by our Membership Investment Schedule, and approval by the Board of Directors. See attached.
Bay State Racing LLC Blindsighted
According to Mary Kate Feeney of Bay State Racing LLC, they are still members of the Greater Gardner Chamber of Commerce and I was the first to tell them of this. They were apparently approved by the Chamber Board of Directors at a July meeting. When Mary Kate went to log in to their membership this morning, she was unable. Mary Kate says that nothing on their end has changed, they are still interested in Gardner. According to Bay State Racing LLC, they assume they are still a Chamber member as they have not been notified otherwise.