MAY 2014 Inside this issue: GM’s Report Member Spotlight Events Review Upcoming Events Annual Dinner Recap Member Expert Article
CHAMBER at a glance
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a publication of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
The End of a Term
I
t seems like a long time ago, but it was only a year past that we laid out the plans for the Chamber for the year. We set some very ambitious goals to be sure. Shoot for the stars, you might hit the moon right? As I look back, as a group, we have accomplished much.
for us, that started with previous boards and really took hold this year, and will continue to evolve for the foreseeable future. We wanted to focus our agenda on projects that would bring value to you our membership, things that were more energizing and fun. We moved those yardsticks considerably.
One area was taking advantage of our We committed to changing and challengnewly created air service. We continue ing the Government Relations Comto have regular communication and cormittee. We wanted to strengthen it and respondence with WestJet, including our empower it. Carla Milne, our chair of recent Chamber that committee air service survey and her memand continue to “We need to and will bers absolutely work with the city grabbed that ball continue to be the to push for investand ran with it. ment in our airport member’s collective Our position of to further this knowledge, unvoice…” important business derstanding of spark. Frank Arndt issues, and muand his Business tual respect directly helped urge the city, Development Committee worked hard school division and province to do the on this and other initiatives. best they could on budget days. We need to and will continue to be the We committed to “fight back” on busimember’s collective voice on these ness leakage to the U.S. and Winnipeg. matters. Our shop local committee chair Jordan Ludwig and his crew pulled off an amazThe efforts of that committee allowed ing Black Friday campaign and they conthe executive to focus on economic detinue to work tirelessly to work on initiavelopment and development of the tives to keep people informed and supchamber. This was a fundamental shift
Craig Senchuk, Chamber President porting local business. We heard time and again about labor and skill shortages. We committed to establishing a Workforce Development Committee and have done that. This committee is undergoing a strategic planning process that will set the stage for us to work collectively for westman business to find short and long term solutions. We committed to beginning something to take advantage of the oil and gas development at our doorstep. The Bakken oil event that we held was an absolutely fantastic first step. It also served to strengthen our partnerships with the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce, World Trade Centre Winnipeg and the Keystone Centre. There is much more to do and we are already planning for (Continued on page 6)