Left to right, North Battleford Mayor David Gillan, Battlefords MLA Jeremy Cockrill, the province's Minister of Highways and Water Security Agency, and Town of Battleford Mayor Ames Leslie along with Derek Schmidt (Battlefords Chamber of Commerce) at the chamber's Power Hour in the fall of 2022. The chamber will have another Power Hour in 2023. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

Keeping busy

Year in Review: Battlefords Chamber has big plans for year ahead

Dec 29, 2022 | 1:04 PM

As 2022 draws to a close, battlefordsNOW is taking a look back on some of the most important and impactful stories of the year.

The Battlefords Chamber of Commerce had an eventful year in 2022.

“We’ve had a very exciting year. We had our 28th BBEX Awards [Business Excellence Awards]. It was back in person again. The event was very well attended and it came off well. Everybody was really happy about that,” Chief Operating Officer Linda Machniak said.

During the event, the Craig Family was named the latest inductee into the Battlefords Business Hall of Fame, as an integral part of the Battlefords’ business community for close to 100 years.

Another highlight of the year was Premier Scott Moe’s Fireside Chat in October, hosted by the chamber. Moe presented his white paper report during the event.

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The chamber also held its Power Hour event again, with Battlefords MLA Jeremy Cockrill, Town of Battleford Mayor Ames Leslie, and North Battleford Mayor David Gillan taking part this year. The last time the event was held was early in 2020, just before the pandemic restrictions started.

Looking ahead to 2023, the chamber will be working as part of a partnership with Destination Battlefords, the Battlefords Hotels Association, and the City of North Battleford to create a Relocation Package to help people moving to the community. Sarah Hashim, a student from Edwards School of Business at the University of Saskatchewan, will be working on the initiative, based out of the chamber’s offices in North Battleford.

“We are going to house a co-op student here that will be working with all of the groups,” Machniak said. “Ultimately, their focus will be to develop an online relocation guide for the community. It’s not something that we have. So, that will be a project for them. She [Hashim] will be starting next week.”

Machniak said unfortunately much of the information people currently find online about the community is not that positive. So, the local groups wanted to ensure there is new a “one-stop shop” available online for people to get more accurate information, whether they are looking for a place to live, enquiring about the various school boards, or have other questions people usually have when they move to a new community.

Chair’s Luncheon coming up

Among the other events in the new year, the chamber is planning its annual Chair’s Luncheon on Jan. 24, when there will be a changeover in leadership. For 2023, the outgoing chair of the board, Derek Schmidt, will be replaced by incoming chair Kayla Petersen, who will be formally inducted during the ceremony.

The chamber is also looking forward to its special guest speaker.

“At the event, we’re expecting to have Jan Swanson, the city’s new economic development manager, there to share his plan for the coming year,… in his work with the city and the economic development portfolio,” Machniak said.

Among its other activities, the chamber continues to lobby the government to support local businesses.

Machniak said at the chamber’s meeting last fall, they approved a policy to encourage the federal government to follow through on its commitment to provide carbon tax proceeds back to businesses.

“They committed to the province, in our case, that did not have a carbon tax regime that they were happy with,” she said. “They did commit to not only giving the public rebates, but there was a component-piece that businesses were to be able to tap into to help them realign their business or upgrade their business to become more efficient, and so on.”

Machniak said those funds have not moved out of Ottawa and come to the province yet.

“We did encourage the federal government to live up to their commitment to be sure to get those monies out to the province’s businesses in an expeditious way,” she said.

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Angela.Brown@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @battlefordsnow