Representatives of chambers of commerce from St. Paul, Elk Point, Cold Lake, Lac La Biche, Lloydminster and Boyle came together Tuesday, Oct. 5 in St. Paul for a round table meeting sponsored by the Alberta Chambers of Commerce (ACC).
The ACC started holding roundtables in the early 2000s, as a way to meet with chambers across the province, with the aim of providing a way for smaller chambers that cannot readily attend ACC events to connect with them and with neighbouring chambers. Issues of concern, challenges these chambers and their members face and their success stories are shared at the meetings. Roundtables are held four times a year in various areas of the province.
Pam Brace, regional marketing coordinator for the Chambers of Commerce Group Insurance Plan, was at the meeting to present a brief outline of the plan, answer questions and talk about the newest marketing materials.
Ken Kobly. The ACC’s president and CEO, told the chambers he is “in the midst of soliciting members for the policy committee,” which is made up of representatives of chambers around the province, who meet by teleconference.
“It’s a forum we can vet emerging issues through, added ACC past chair Don Oszli. “Anyone can join in.”
Chamber representatives were given an opportunity to outline the challenges facing their groups. These ranged from “really stretched” human resources for both the community and the chamber in Lloydminster, according to executive director Pat Tenney, to “a very good year, with a very good team” in St. Paul, where president Doug Lamb says membership has grown over the past four years. In Boyle, Connie Radmanovich says the chamber is “just getting back on its feet and trying different promotional things,” while in Cold Lake, where challenges for the city include long term sustainability and for the chamber, a shortage of labour at the office and member levels. Lac La Biche has a new and energetic board this year and is working toward being recognized as a viable part of the community. Elk Point’s biggest challenge has been “finding more members,” president Sandy Smith said, “but they seem to be coming back now” after a slump in numbers.
Chamber involvement is “a huge benefit to a small benefit to a small business just starting out,” Oszli noted. He encouraged the chamber leaders to join the policy committee, and said the ACC is “a vehicle to lobby for change.”
As the focus turned to success stories, Oszli called Smith forward to accept the Alberta Chamber of the Year award for chambers with 100 or less members, noting that the Elk Point chamber is nearing completion of a four year project of building the exterior replica of the community’s original train station, on the original site, with the new building powered by wind and solar energy, and destined to become a tourist destination. He noted that the Elk Point chamber has been a member of the ACC since 1946.
“We are now going on to stage two,” Smith said. “We’re going to partner with Lakeland College to provide a centre for wind tests and green power education. We’re getting visitors from all over, and businesses are starting to see the benefit that it is. The attraction for the downtown is enormous.” She briefly outlined the power system, which has “created much more than we thought it would, sometimes enough to power three houses,” and which is tracked on two computer programs. Excess power feeds back onto the grid, which should have the chamber’s use of conventional electricity “at net zero by the end of the year.”
The other chambers also reported successes, Boyle working on the Alberta Energy Corridor, Cold Lake partnering in the very successful Race the Base, hosting a mammoth fish fry and taking over operation of the visitor information centre, Lac La Biche taking over the Powwow Days street festival and working with the college and county toward a new state-of-the-art water treatment plant, and Lloydminster with new management in city hall generating new excitement and a new direction, a separate economic development authority, and the chamber winning a human resource task force award.
In St Paul, Lamb reported that the chamber “is the voice of Shop Local” and is involved in a lot of projects. “Businesses are so busy they’re allowing us to be their spokesmen. We have the Christmas campaign coming up, with a passport to try and get people to shop local; it’s a real success story. We continue to do things we’re good at.”
Kobly wrapped up the roundtable with a recap of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce AGM, where 14 of 68 policies presented came from Alberta, with 12 of those adopted, “many of them with an impact on the whole nation. We were the only province bringing policies on agriculture, and overall, it was a positive effort.” He added that only Alberta and Quebec have 100 per cent of their chambers as members of the Canadian Chamber.
