Are you wondering what Colfax Main Street is up to lately? Well, the bulk of the work for the Colfax Main Street organization takes place within our four committees – Business Improvement, Design, Organization and Promotion. Each month we will focus on one committee to provide you an update. If the work of the committee sounds interesting and you want to get involved, please let us know!

The Organization Committee works closely with the Colfax Main Street Program Director. One of their main tasks is to help communicate what Colfax Main Street is doing. This is done through the creation of the monthly newsletter, press releases, web site updates, and the future creation of a Colfax Main Street You Tube video. A second component of the Organization Committee is volunteer recruitment. They have been working hard to recruit new volunteers to Colfax Main Street. They also have a Volunteer of the Month program where they recognize outstanding volunteers and are working on a Volunteer handbook. A third component of the Organization committee is fundraising. They are planning a summer fundraiser and our upcoming three year fundraising campaign. The chair of the Committee is Ann Marie Towsley. They meet the third Tuesday of the month at 5:30 PM at the Colfax Senior Citizens Center.

The Business Improvement (BI) Committee is busy working on many different items, including:

Research tools
These tools include Business Surveys, Consumer Surveys, and Conditional Assessments which are all common practice amongst Main Street Iowa communities to understand your business environment.
*The Business Survey will be part of the Business Visitation Program where volunteers will go door to door to visit with every business in the community. Jim Thompson from Main Street Iowa was just in Colfax to talk with our volunteers about this process. This will allow us to get businesses’ input on when consumers shop, who their customers are, and general business needs and wants.
*The Consumer Survey helps us to understand why people shop in downtown, when you buy, etc.
*The Conditional Assessment will be done with Conrad, Iowa. Conrad volunteers will come to Colfax and assess our community, and then Colfax volunteers will go to Conrad and assess their community and then both communities will share the results. The Conditional Assessment will allow us to get an outside perspective about our community and businesses.

Once all of the research tools are completed, the BI Committee will have a very good understanding for future direction and projects from many perspectives – business, consumer and outside visitors.

Revolving loan fund
Outside of the secondary research, the BI Committee is also looking into establishing a Revolving Loan Fund. This will allow business to get extra funds to help complete expansion projects, remodeling projects, etc.

Keeping a pulse on our business community and local involvement
In addition to all of the previously mentioned projects, the BI Committee also works to keep their pulse on what is happening with the business community such as new business coming to the community, businesses wanting to expand or grow, businesses wanting to relocate, etc. The BI committee has been also working closely to involve local high school students in many of their activities.

The chair of the Business Improvement committee is David Mast. Their new meeting time is the second Wednesday of the month at 8:00 AM.