Chamber aims to empower businesses: New board sworn-in
The new members of the Fort St. John and District Chamber of Commerce board were sworn in at the December 10 luncheon meeting, including new president Vince van Wieringen.
Of the some-1600 businesses in Fort St. John, only 360 are members of the Chamber, and although membership in a Chamber of Commerce isn’t necessary if you’re part of the business community, there are advantages to belonging to the not-for-profit organization, according to Executive Director, Tiffany Hetenyi.
What the Chamber does, said Hetenyi, is invest time and money to carry forward programs relevant to members needs and that affects the growth and socio-economic health of the community.
“It is a catalyst that brings together forces, both public and private, through common goals and resolutions,” said Hetenyi. “It’s an organization dedicated to promote a favourable business climate for membership and community, to work on issues of community interest, and provide business leadership for improvement of the economy, political environment and quality of life.”
Membership in the Chamber is open to businesses of all sizes, individuals, students, governments, non-profits, organizations and seniors.
The Fort St. John Chamber’s mission, which is still being developed Hetenyi explained, “is to advocate for, support and promote businesses in our communities. And our vision is to empower our membership to achieve greater success.”
Advocacy, benefits and connections are the core services provided by the Chamber to its members.
Through advocacy at all levels of government, the Chamber strives to respond to emerging issues in the local business community and moving those issues forward.
“A lot of this is developing policies,” Hetenyi said, “where you research what the issue is, how it came about and what are the key concerns and what are some solutions that we can propose.”
Beyond advocating at various government levels, the local Chamber can also take these issues to the BC Chamber and to the Canadian chamber to get as much support as possible for emerging issues for the local business community, and perhaps even change laws that adversely affect businesses.
It also works in reverse, where the Chamber keeps its members apprised of government initiatives and grants, such as the High On Ice Festival and Canada Day microgrants the City of Fort St. John has created in the past to support local business participation in community events to also promote businesses.
Being part of the Fort St. John and District Chamber has benefits and gives local businesses memberships in both the BC and Canadian Chambers of Commerce which come with additional benefits.
Local benefits include dental and health services, import-export assistance, education and training. The full list of benefits of chamber membership is available on the Chamber’s website, and there is a wide selection of training opportunities available to members. For example, with the rise in e-business in recent years, social media and marketing training has become quite popular, as a way to further connect with clients online.
“We would like to build a more value program for Fort St. John and the North Peace, so that’s something that we are going to be reaching out to businesses on,” she said.
Connections help grow your business through networking. For example, the monthly Chamber luncheons are not only opportunities for education, thanks to the wide range of speakers who are engaged for the events, but also networking opportunities.
“We also do business referrals. So, if we get a question of ‘who offers this service in the community?’ we would reference our members first. If we don’t have a member that offers that service, that’s when we would refer another business.
“That’s a value-added to the membership.”
The role of the board, which was sworn-in on December 10, is to provide high-level guidance and direction, establish standards of conduct, provide oversight and monitoring, protect the organization’s interests, and ensure financial health and viability.
In-coming Chamber president, Vince van Wieringen is looking forward to learning from both incoming and outgoing board members, and past president Mitchell Chilcott as he takes on his new role on the board.
“I look forward to advocating and working really hard for our local businesses. But in order to do that, we need to get our local businesses engaged with Tiffany,” van Wieringen said.
“As a board, I think that our goal over the next year is going to be trying to help with that, and going out into the community, getting engagement. When we have 360 local memberships and we’re getting engagement of maybe 40 or 50 surveys, that’s not a real representation."
The engagement is a big part of chamber membership, and of creating policies around what is affecting the local economy.
“In order for us to do our job as a board, and for Tiffany to do her job at a BC and Canada-level, we need to know what concerns and what affects our local businesses,” he said.