Vicksburg Main Street chairman Ronnie Bounds wants Main Street’s board to be more effective in promoting the city’s downtown district and communicating with its members.

“I want to hold a series of work sessions to discuss things that we can do to do a better job of promoting the downtown district to people as a place to visit, to live and to shop,” he told Main Street’s Board of Directors Thursday.

He did not set specific dates for the sessions, but said he anticipated starting the meetings in late August or early September.

“Our budget is limited. Our biggest expenses are salaries and advertising,” Bounds said. “That means we have to find more effective ways of communicating with our members in the district and promoting the Main Street district that require little or no money.”

Main Street is funded by a 5.05 mill special assessment paid by the owners of the district’s 150 commercial properties and dues paid by the businesses based on size. Main Street’s fiscal 2012 budget is $43,700.

“I want us to sit down and brainstorm — suggest ideas that may help us,” he said, “Some of them are not going to be practical, but there will be other ideas that we’ll be able to use.”

In other action, the board:

• Approved the treasurer’s report.

• Approved the budget review for April.

• Approved a finance and budget committee of Alice Hebler, Matt Ferrell and Kristin Meehan.

• Learned Main Street has been accredited by the National Main Street Program for 2012.

• Learned AmeriCorps will be working on beautification projects in the downtown area.