Strathmore Business Association hosts debut meeting

By John Watson Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Strathmore Business Association met for the first time in Town of Strathmore council chambers, Oct. 8, to discuss cooperation and collaboration between local businesses. 

The Town of Strathmore aims to create a network of businesses that may work together and aid each other, as well as to provide information regarding the Town’s Municipal Development Plan.

Angela Groeneveld, representing the Town of Strathmore, explained the Oct. 8 meeting aimed to be a sort of brainstorming event between local businesses in the downtown core to discuss what a Strathmore Business Association could look like and how it may be able to operate. 

“We are here to be stronger together and we want to do more with less. We want to be fiscally responsible as government, we want to be efficient of our time, and we always want to be supporting sufficiently,” she said. “Having one organization versus 17, makes us more fiscally responsible, gets us more done, and you get a larger impact on government money supporting events that are majority owned and separate.”

The Strathmore Business Association, as it becomes established, aims to speak directly with local businesses broken down into groups based on their locations within the town, starting with the downtown area.

Directly, the aim would not be to compete technically with operations of the Strathmore Wheatland Chamber of Commerce, rather to be an organization comprised of local business owners to serve local business owners. In fact, it could be subsidiary of the local chamber of commerce.

Topics addressed through the Strathmore Business Association may range anywhere from advertising and signage, to events such as street markets and parades, which would require collaboration to create and host. 

Similarly, it creates an additional avenue to encourage business owners to speak with each other and create mutually beneficial ways to promote and benefit each other.

“The Town of Strathmore’s objective is to start centrally with the businesses in the downtown core … We as an administration and economic development need to have a conversation in the different land use areas, we need to have a conversation with every single person, every single business in (each) area,” said Groeneveld. 

Throughout Strathmore, she added there are 277 local business owners, each of whom are sporting different needs based on their unique business, location, and catered demographics.

More information regarding the development of the Strathmore Business Association is available through the town, including how future meetings will be set up, scheduling, and how business zones will be broken down in order to organize attendance.