Should the chamber compete with members?

I've met lots of business owners who believe the chamber shouldn't be competing with members, and when this question is posed to any board member, they agree that chambers shouldn't compete with their members... but wait a minute? Who believes the chamber competes with them? 

The Problem is that there are really three kinds of businesses who are threatened by the Chamber as a competitor:

1. Community events. There are only 365 days in a year so there's going to be competing dates from time to time. I believe you should be working with other organizations in your region to make sure you're not putting all your event efforts into a conflicting date and time. Be good partners, and that goes for them as much is it does for you.

2. Leads groups. You know that leads group that only lets in one person for each type of business? They tell me that chambers compete with them because chamber members get together and network... well c'mon... membership is subscription plus community and those leads groups get their people together to create a sense of community just like we do and hey --- who came first? Yeah, chambers did. Just because you chose to operate in a membership model -- just like a chamber -- doesn't mean that we compete for business. Leads groups are exclusive and chambers are inclusive. 

3. Media companies. We're talking about radio station owners, newspaper publishers and magazine publishers. These folks tell me regularly that they think chambers compete with them because we offer marketing and visibility to our members. Well, yeah we do because we exist to solve common business problems and that just happens to be one of them. Ya know what's interesting? I don't get the same complaint from digital marketers. It's only the companies who are dealing in finite media. Print has finite pages and radio has finite channels and 30-second slots for your ad. 

So the problem really isn't that you're competing with your members. The problem is that you're awesome and they wish they were you. The solution is to keep being awesome.