If chamber of commerce membership trends are any indication, Lawrence is weathering poor economic times better than most communities across the country.

Membership in 2002 was at 1,663 individuals, representing 1,262 businesses.

“That’s pretty close to where we’ve been for the last couple of years,” said Cathy Lewis, vice president for membership.

Although the chamber would not release exact numbers for publication, businesses that dropped their membership during 2002 were offset for only a slight loss by those that joined.

That puts Lawrence ahead of the curve at a time when chambers of commerce around the country are probably averaging a 5 percent loss, said Gary Toebben, a former chamber president in Lawrence and now the chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce Executives.

“Businesses have had to cut their budgets,” he said. “Sometimes their investment in the chamber becomes one of those cuts. It’s not personal.”

In Lawrence the biggest trend was an increase in service-sector memberships, Lewis said.

Toebben said such a trend was not surprising: Nationally, jobs in the service industry are the fastest growing segment of the work force.

In Douglas County, service-sector jobs made up 16.6 percent of the working labor force in 2000, up from 13.5 percent in 1990, according to the U.S. Census.

Other noteworthy changes included a slight drop in memberships for financial planners and businesses focused on technology — also a national trend — while businesses specializing in home health care increased slightly.

Restaurants have also experienced fairly high turnover, Lewis said, but that’s not untypical and may only be exacerbated by the poor economy.

Otherwise, Lewis said, changes were negligible.

“We’re really doing very well in Lawrence retention-wise,” she said.

The local chamber has shown itself to be a strong organization, Toebben said in explaining why Lawrence is doing better than the average community.

Toebben and Lewis said they expected the economy to eventually turn around, and then the few members lost to tight budgets would return.