SWCC boasts productive AGM meeting

By John Watson Local Journalism initiative Reporter

The Strathmore Wheatland Chamber of Commerce (SWCC) is excited to announce some of the happenings from their Annual General Meeting (AGM).

According to Executive Director Scott Silva, the SWCC is well on track for significant growth targets and has engaged positively with local partners from throughout the county.

“We’ve been able to activate our strategic growth plan, which really involved not only engagement with our business communities but offering new resources and incentives and making them readily available,” said Silva. “We have our strategic email campaigns that go to our membership, to alliances with large industry and service providers — everything from helping to reduce point of sale costs for our business members, to business and internet and then of course our health benefits.”

Silva added that the SWCC has currently achieved a roughly 30 per cent growth target, which is effectively working to offer operational efficiencies and cost reduction for local businesses.

Additionally, Michelle Bissett (Scotiabank), Ryan Carriere (Rocking R Guest Ranch), Natasha Fyfe (Wheatland Crisis Society), Whitnee Montgrand (104.5 More Country & StrathmoreNow), and Evan MacLeod (Parenting Littles) have joined the board.

“It’s just really good to see a lot of the community engagement from not only existing residents and business owners, but from new ones as well,” said Silva. “All in all, we have a nice new, diverse group coming into the chamber and we’ve got a fresh set of eyes because none of these directors have been involved in the board before.”

The SWCC is also looking to establish a partnership agreement with the Town of Strathmore and a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Wheatland County.

Silva explained those agreements will comprise part of the SWCC’s funding requirements and projections for the next year and help to meet some of the organization’s strategic goals. 

He added he was excited by the resounding success of the Tour 564 program.

“Tour 564 was an amazing success. Hayley (Poirier) did an amazing job being the steward for that campaign and also for that funding from the grant.”

“Tour 564 has been great, we have gotten great feedback, a lot of exposure and now it’s all going to dovetail into our regional trade show which we are very excited about.”

Following Poirier’s departure as acting chair of the board, a new chair will be appointed during the May meeting of the SWCC.