I am excited to be attending the BC Chamber AGM and the BC Chamber Executives AGM from June 6-9 in Prince George. We were awarded a $1,000 Bursary from the BCCE to assist with the costs of the event. After review by our Board and in particular the advocacy committee, myself, our Chamber President, Cheri Mactier and Vice President Martin Sanderson will have the opportunity to support up to 4 policies that have been submitted to the BC Chamber to lobby to the Federal Government. I am looking forward to meeting with and learning from Chamber Executives from all over the Province. Recently, I was asked to be a director at large for the BC Chamber Executives. I am honored for the invite and very excited for this opportunity to sit amongst such an experienced group of Executives, who I have already learned so much from!
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Job Fair – Thank you Alissa, Johnna, Renae and the Work BC team for partnering on such an amazing event. As a Chamber we offered our members that couldn’t attend the job fair but were looking for employees to post their jobs at our table and collect resumes or hand out the postings. The Museum and Oak Bay Marine Group took us up on our offer. We made 15 posters for the Museum and gave out 11 – took a resume and connected with their two summer students from last year, who were interested in coming back. Oak Bay Marine Group, we gave out several posters, accepted a resume and the Marina interviewed the applicant from the Job Fair within two days! There were close to 400 people through the job fair and the feedback was excellent. A&W had to copy more applications as they ran out. People were still arriving at 1:05 as things were being shut down and it was suggested by several people that we should be doing this twice a year!
Golf Fundraiser – After a two year pause, we are excited to be able to host a fun, real live, in person event! A huge thank you to the Ladysmith & District Credit Union for their generous support as our Title Sponsor. Our golf tournament is most definitely an economic development event for our community. Not only is it our largest, most popular fundraiser, it is an opportunity to showcase our local businesses in the form of participation, sponsorships and/or prize donations. There is something for everyone! It is fun, outside in the fresh air and it is an amazing networking opportunity and a wonderful way to show appreciation to your clients and business associates. If you would like to join us this year, we have a few spaces left for teams, sponsorships and prize donations.
We are especially excited to announce that this is a memorial tournament in honor of Larry Ingram, a former employee of David Stalker Excavating Ltd. If you know someone you feel has contributed to our business community, please do not hesitate to contact us about the possibility of a future memorial dedication/sponsorship.
Tourism – the Chamber has postcards!!! Local photographer Lulu Vegh has printed some of her photos in the form of postcards for sale at the Visitor Center. I would like to be able to offer more local artwork, photos, postcards or locally made Ladysmith art for purchase by our tourists. I will be attending a lunch and learn this week with Cowichan Tourism to learn more about their initiatives for this summer. Make sure to “Like” our Tourism Ladysmith Facebook page to keep updated with the events around town.