– Deb McClelland is the executive director of the Kamloops Chamber of Commerce. She can be reached email at deb@kamloopschamber.ca.
KAMLOOPS – Vince Lombardi once said, “the quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavour.” Here in Kamloops, we are blessed to have a city of people who strive to live well, being committed to excellence in a wide range of areas that allow our community to thrive.
For the past thirty-one years our Chamber has provided an opportunity for many of these people and businesses to be recognized for their outstanding contributions to our city through our Business Excellence Awards program. Each year, our own team works to ensure that our program is also growing and improving.
Last year we introduced significant changes to our awards selection process along with four new award categories, and this year we are thrilled to announce the addition of another new award: the ‘Inclusive Workplace of the Year Award’, sponsored by Open Door Group.
This award showcases businesses that demonstrate inclusive hiring practices; a dedication to provide ongoing training opportunities that increase workplace skills; a focus on an inclusive culture and have a minimum of five full-time employees.
Our Business Excellence Awards are open to the community – no chamber membership is required to nominate or be nominated. We encourage you to spend the few minutes it takes to nominate a business that you think should be recognized for their commitment to excellence; your doing so will help to highlight those that may otherwise not be recognized for their success. The deadline to nominate is June 30th. Learn more about our program and nominate today by visiting the following link.
One of the ways that our own Chamber strives to commit to excellence is through our government relations work on behalf of our members. As many of you may already be aware, our Chamber takes great pride in being known across the country for our involvement in all levels of policy work.
Each year, with the support of our members, put together important resolutions to be taken forward to government after being passed at our local level. Each May, several representatives from our board and staff participate in the BC Chamber of Commerce AGM where we bring forward the recommendations approved by our membership.
This year, we have five that we will be bringing to the BC Chamber of Commerce membership: the Canada China Trade Tariff Gap, First Nations Infrastructure Institution, Home Renovation Tax Credit for Energy Efficiency, and Short Term Rentals.
You can learn more about each one of these recommendations at the following link; as well as see other recommendations that are on our books which we have brought forward in other years but are still currently working on.
Not only are we continually working to improve our annual awards program and better our policy work, we are always trying to find ways to improve our other programs and services, offering even more value to our membership.
To that end we will be launching several new money-saving benefits to our membership in the beginning of June. Make sure you are receiving our bi-weekly e-bulletins in order to be the first to find out about these fantastic additions (if you aren’t receiving these informative emails and would like to, you can sign up at kamloopschamber.ca), or check out our website in June to learn more and starting taking advantage of them right away.
And as always, we are here for you – our purpose is to be your business connection. If there are ways that you are looking to connect to more business opportunities, give us a call or stop by our office – we always want to hear from you!