Six members of the Williams Lake & District Chamber of Commerce attended and participated in the three-day, 59th Annual General Meeting of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce.
There were a number of resolutions presented to both the federal and provincial governments.
Once these resolutions are approved they become the policy directing of the B.C. Chamber to lobby the provincial government or their agencies that would be responsible for dealing with the specific interest.
The B.C. Chamber then works with the Canadian Chamber to move the national issues forward.
The Williams Lake Chamber presented two resolutions of which only one was approved. The second will be re-presented at a later date with some fine-tuning. The Chamber of Commerce throughout the country appears to be the most influential and most respected business group in Canada. The guest speakers were excellent and, of course, were topical of the trends of today with the chamber movement as well as the economic climate as it is today.
An ever-changing world and we also must change to keep up. The topics ranged from sustaining not only our chambers but also our community, to the misinformation out there about the oil sands and the northern pipeline. Highlights included ideas on how we can move forward with some of our economic ideas as well as our sustainability. Every year chambers are nominated for their efforts and work throughout the year, not only on behalf of their chamber, but on behalf of the well being of their communities.
I am proud to say the Williams Lake & District Chamber received an honourable mention for their efforts.
Our crew came home pumped and ready to take on the world with many new ideas to improve our chamber as well as work on our successes and every front.
The problem being they are not sure how they can get it all done tomorrow (as they would like to).
Walt Cobb is a freelance columnist for the Tribune. He is a former Liberal MLA, former Williams Lake mayor, and current president of the Williams Lake and District Chamber of Commerce.