The Estevan Chamber of Commerce annual general meeting held on Tuesday offered a chance to summarize the successes and challenges of 2018 and glimpse at the perspectives of 2019.
Over the past few years, the chamber has seen steady engagement growth. Besides, it was noticed that the composition of the chamber has changed with a lot of young members joining the business community.
Jackie Wall, executive director of the Estevan Chamber of Commerce, reflected on the main tendencies of 2018.
“2018 was a really strong year. Financially we overcame the projected deficit, we further streamlined and adapted our focus according to the feedback we were getting from our members. And that really has been the focus over the last several years,” Wall said.
A business summit in October was mentioned as one of the examples of such feedback received from the chamber members.
“We started with a concept of a half-day event, with a few information sessions. And that quickly developed into a full-day summit. And that was the result of the support from our sponsors and also the feedback from the members wanting sessions in different areas,” Wall explained.
The panel discussions held at the business summit resulted in a number of projects that the chamber and the community are working on now. After the first success, the chamber is planning on having similar events on a biannual basis, alternating with the year of Estevan Business Excellence Awards (EBEX).
Another event organized to allow the community to network better was the coffee talk, which lets professionals informally talk about business. The first session was held in November and then run on a monthly basis.
“The first one had 13 registrations in on the first day. And we realized … that this is going to be big. We ended up with 26 at the first Coffee Talk, and now we are up over 40,” Wall said.
Also, there is an annual chamber survey coming out in April. It allows the chamber board to better navigate through the main issues the business community is facing.
Wall noted that they keep abreast of the challenges the Energy City stands against and actively participate in the Economic Development Committee and the Coal Transition Committee work.
The financial report demonstrated that the total revenue was down last year from the year before, but so were the expenses. Stepping into 2018, the chamber projected a loss, yet they managed to end up with net profit instead.
“We were actually budgeting for a loss of $11,000, and we were able with some of our events to show a profit of a $1,029,” said Chamber treasurer Sheila Gunther.
The profitable year-end became possible after the success of the business summit as well as the cannabis workshop held by the chamber.
And despite the serious challenges the Energy City business community had to work around in 2018, the past year demonstrated that Estevan has a lot of potential to overcome economic problems.
The EBEX nomination packages were also announced at the Chamber's general meeting.
“This is the earliest we’ve ever come out with our nomination packages,” said Wall.
There are two new awards this year, which brings it to 11 awards in total. The nominations are now open. At the time of the meeting, there were three sponsorships still available.
