September 2018 Inside this issue: General Managers Report New Members Member Spotlight Event Season Line Up Upcoming Events Presidents Message 5 Minutes for Business
CHAMBER at a glance
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a publication of the Brandon Chamber of Commerce
Message From the President
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n behalf of the Board of Directors, I hope you had a great summer and were able to spend time with family and friends while enjoying some great weather. It’s hard to believe that we are already into September, and back into the full routine of our daily lives.
complete by October.
Myself, along with some other members of our Business Development Committee were hosted in Winnipeg by YES! Winnipeg and North Forge, two privately funded entities with economic development and entrepreneurship Our summer was a busy one. The at the forefront of their operations. It Board dealt with the final steps to go was a great opportunity to see some ahead with major different repairs to the approaches to building at 1043 addressing these ...the Chamber Princess Avenue. issues in the will continue to This initiative has province and taken a while to learn just how be a watchdog get to this point. involved the on the spending It was felt after business careful community has of tax dollars in deliberation that become in these our community, preserving the organization to history that spur growth in as well as focus comes with a local Winnipeg of areas that heritage build communities. matter to such as this was important. The The Brandon business owners. Board also Chamber reviewed the Executives were business case surrounding such also able to host Chuck Davidson, repairs and determined it was the President of the Manitoba Chambers right decision to go ahead. The of Commerce, in Brandon for a day of majority of the restoration should be meeting with some of our members.
Jeff Hood 2018- 2019 Chamber President
It was great for us to spend the day with Chuck, and hear about issues that effect our local businesses on a local and provincial level. We also support Chuck’s and the Manitoba Chambers of Commerce’s efforts to gain better relationships with our neighbors to the south to encourage the existing trade relationship that Manitoba and Canada has with the United States. There is an impact on both sides of the border with upcoming changes to NAFTA, and we are hopeful that an agreement will be put in place to allow for business to move forward. (Continued on page 6)
FROM THE GENERAL MANAGER’S DESK
GM REPORT
Time For Business
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eptember marks the time when it’s back to school and regular routines, and while I am reluctant to say that summer is over (although not officially until a couple few weeks from now!), it is certainly back to business. For the Chamber this means the start of committee meetings, a new events season, and ramping up our advocacy work. We are excited to present this year’s event line-up with a great slate of
What your Chamber membership does: 80% Increase in the likelihood that a consumer will patronize your business 73% Increase in consumer awareness 68% Increase in your local reputation when compared to the competition 49% More likely that consumers have a favourable view of your business
inspirational speakers and topics. We are kicking off with our first Luncheon of the year, Moving Canada’s Good to Market featuring Sean Finn of CN, followed by our annual Small Business Luncheon in October with the presentation of member anniversary certificates. In November we will hear from U.S. Consulate Winnipeg, Anthony Pagliai on Canada/US Relations and we will wrap up 2018 with our annual Holiday Celebration Luncheon (hope you have your holiday sweaters ready!). Luncheons in the New Year will include presentations on provincial economic growth, engaging with the Indigenous community, a Manitoba Success Story, and our annual State of the City and Province addresses. With a couple hundred luncheon attendees each month, it is a great opportunity to network and connect with business colleagues; It’s also another reason to make sure you have confirmed your season seats. Make sure to also mark your calendar for our fourth annual HR Conference, Business After 5’s at Century 21 Westman Realty and Heritage Co-op, our AGM Wine & Cheese at the new Provincial Exhibition Dome Building, and our monthly First Friday Coffees – all planned for this Fall.
With the upcoming Municipal Election, we have also been working to develop 10% More likely to a our key advocacy priorities and a consumer that your questionnaire for candidates to learn product is better than the more about their positions on competition important issues for the business community. While we would typically *The Schapiro Group Study host a mayoral debate, with only one on Chamber Effectiveness candidate announced to date, we will
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wait to confirm, but be sure to stay tuned for other election activities from the Chamber. With some incumbents choosing not to rerun, there will no doubt be new faces around the council table. We are committed to building relationships and will continue to dialogue on important business issues, no matter who is elected. Our committees are also reconvening to tackle advocacy initiatives, develop and improve our programs and look for opportunities to provide more value to your membership. If you would like to get involved, now is the perfect time to consider joining a Chamber committee! Finally, we are excited to work with you again for another year of successful business!
Carolynn Cancade General Manager If you have ideas on how we can provide more value for your membership investment or are interested in hearing more about our programming and advocacy work, please let us know! I can be reached at gm@brandonchamber.ca.
www.brandonchamber.ca
MEMBERSHIP ZONE
WELCOME NEW MEMBERS Pita Pit
Brandon Evergreen
Pharmasave
Quick-service restaurant franchise serving pita sandwiches. 658 18th Street #3 Brandon, Manitoba http://www.pitapitbrandon.com
Local Residential Development Company 21 Willow Crest Avenue Brandon, Manitoba http://liveatthewoods.ca
Bee EZ Tree Service
Aberhart Ag Solutions
Canadian independent pharmacy and drugstore retailer 4-42 McTavish Ave E Brandon, Manitoba (204) 728-3642 https://pharmasave.com/store/ pharmasave-brandon-clinic-pharmacy
Arboreal Team that specializes in tree pruning and removal, brush chipping and stump grinding. Box 22103 Brandon, Manitoba https://beeeztree.com
Family owned business specializing in bringing Bio-Sul Premium Plus to Brandon. Unit 4, 940 Princess Avenue Brandon, Manitoba (204) 573-2069 http://www.aberhartagsolutions.ca
member
SPOT LIGHT
Delta Claims Management Inc. Local claims management company 527 Princess Avenue Brandon, Manitoba (204) 717-4100 http://www.deltaclaims.com
Aberhart Ag Solutions Dan Aberhart
How long has your business been in business for? Aberhart Ag Solutions is a fresh start-up company started in the summer of 2015 by Dan, Terry, and Harvey Aberhart. We are a growing family owned business with extensive experience in agricultural production.
What are the goals of your business? Our goal is to provide fresh new solutions to our customers in a transformative way. We stand behind the products we put our name on, and create opportunities for growth - for our customers, our partners, and our employees.
What does your business offer to customers? Aberhart Ag Solutions market and deliver agricultural products and services with trust and integrity. We offer innovative solutions that transform the way people do things, with recommendations based on a foundation of agronomy & science. We are dedicated to providing profitable solutions that are unique to the industry.
What are you most proud of about your business? We have created a unique company culture designed to allow people to work within their unique ability. Through our team’s efforts, we have rallied an amazing network of over 50 resellers that share our core values, that have delivered nearly 1,000,000 acres an incredibly sustainable long term source of sulphur to the producers of SK and MB, saving time, money, and the environment.
What is something your business does that most customers don’t know? It was originally going to be called Aberhart & Sons but we talked our dad out of it.
September 2018
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EVENTS
2018-2019 Event Season Lineup Luncheon: Moving Canada's Goods to Market with CN
Business for Breakfast: Mental Health in the Workplace
September 6th 11:30am-1:00pm @ Keystone Centre Sponsored by Sunrise Credit Union
January Location TBA Sponsor: TBA
Business After 5: Century 21 Westman Realty
Luncheon: Provincial Economic Growth Strategy
September 12th 5:00-7:00pm @ 2915 Victoria Ave
January 17th 11:30am-1:00pm @ Victoria Inn Sponsored by Bell MTS Corral Centre
Chamber 101 April 16th 3:30 - 4:30pm @ Chamber Office
Luncheon: State of the Province Address April 25th 11:30am-1:00pm @ Keystone Centre Sponsored by Westman Communications Group
Chamber 101 September 25th 2:30-3:30pm @ Chamber Office
Chamber 101 January 22th 2:30-3:30pm @ Chamber Office
Annual General Meeting & Wine Reception September 28th 5:30-7:30pm @ Dome Building
Business After 5: Heritage Co-op October 2nd 2:30-3:30pm @ 1035 Richmond Ave
February 21st 11:30am-1:00pm @ Victoria Inn Sponsored by CENTUM Mortgage Choice
Chamber 101 November 27th 12:00-1:00pm @ Chamber Office
Luncheon: Holiday Celebration December 6th 11:30am-1:00pm @ Victoria Inn Sponsored by Westoba Credit Union
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11:30am-1:00pm @ The Clarion Hotel Sponsored by Progressive Sanitation
30th Annual Chamber Golf Tournament June 12th
Business for Breakfast: International Location: TBA Women’s Day March Location: TBA Sponsor: TBA
Luncheon: U.S./Canada Relations November 18th 11:30am-1:00pm @ Victoria Inn Sponsored by Compass Credit Union
May 15th 11:30am-1:00pm @ Keystone Centre Sponsored by Brandon First
Luncheon: We Are All Leaders - How A Bus Driver Showed Us Anything Luncheon: Changeover Ceremony Was Possible June 5th
Luncheon: Small Business Week October 18th 11:30am-1:00pm @ Victoria Inn Sponsored by Compass Credit Union
Luncheon: State of the City Address
136th Annual Business Achievements Awards Gala Dinner March 14th 5:30-10:00pm @ Keystone Centre Sponsors: TBA
Please note that event dates and speakers may change, as we are constantly evolving our program to better suit your needs and availability!
Event updates, added events and workshops are regularly Luncheon: Champions of Agriculture communicated in our Chamber with Jan Westcott Insider, which is the best way to stay March 28th up to date with the Chamber! 11:30am-1:00pm @ The Clarion Hotel Sponsored by Brandon University
Subscribe your staff to our Chamber Insider today! Call 204-571-5340.
www.brandonchamber.ca
SIGNATURE EVENT
2018 - 2019
Celebrating an Anniversary? We want to celebrate with you by recognizing your achievement at the Small Business Week Luncheon on October 18, 2018. We will also mention your company in the next edition of the Chamber at a Glance. Email info@brandonchamber.ca with your milestone!
September 2018
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President’s Message (Cont’d from page 1) September is also the start of our events season. Our staff have been working diligently to attract speakers for our luncheon series. We were lucky to hear from Sean Finn of CN and have also secured other notable speakers such as the U.S Consulate Winnipeg Anthony Pagliai; economic growth strategist Dave Angus; vice president of the Business Council of Manitoba Kevin Chief; and Jan Westcott with Spirits Canada. We look forward to these events and speakers in the coming months. As another busy year begins, we begin into the municipal and school division election season, where the Chamber will continue to be a watchdog on the spending of tax dollars in our community, as well as focus of areas that matter to business owners. This will include revisiting the red tape reduction policy that was introduced a couple of years ago.
We will also be looking to enhance our relationship with provincial officials to ensure that we are on the map for opportunities that arise and to ensure a quality standard of living is met. We thank you for taking time to enhance our community and look forward to seeing you at an event in the near future. If there is anything you feel the Chamber should be doing, please feel free to let us know.
Jeff Hood 2018/2019 Brandon Chamber President
YOU’RE READING THIS! And so are over 750 delegates from the Chamber, which means if this was your ad, you’d be pretty popular! There are still spots available for our upcoming issues, for as low as $50.00 per publication. Call 204-571-5344 to schedule your ad now!
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Join a Committee • • • • •
Government Relations Events Membership Business Development Workforce Development
Make your membership investment a rewarding one by practicing your teambuilding and leadership skills, networking with new people, and build on your résumé.
www.brandonchamber.ca
5 Minutes for Business
GDPR an Example for the World? Be Careful of Fool’s Gold... First published on the Canadian Chamber of Commerce website on August 9th, 2018.
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emember all the spam you got when companies concluded they needed expressed consent under the Canadian Anti-Spam Legislation to keep sending you emails? You would receive an email from a Nigerian prince advising that, while he does not currently have any lucrative commissions on a business transaction for you, he would still like to have your consent to continue sending you email offers. The same thing occurred in Europe leading up to the implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on May 25. Similarly, California will be putting into action the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018. The debate is happening now in Canada. There is pressure on the government to redefine consent, increase penalties for non-compliance and increase transparency obligations, even though the new breach notification regulations under Canada’s Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) do not come into force until November 1, 2018.
data to the individual. However, the wholesale wresting of personal data away from the companies that collect it shatters the social contract of the service/data exchange that apps are built on and disrupts decades-old established business models. There are many costs to this new regime in Europe. The obvious one is compliance—acquiring the technology to successfully respond to individual requests for data transparency, retooling for data portability and extracting personal data across multiple platforms. The traditional business model is also affected. The idea that an app was free was never accurate—if you’re not paying for something, then you’re the product, as the saying goes. Disrupting this model could increase the cost of apps and other digital services or platforms and stifle innovation.
Data and the techniques and technologies employed to collect and analyze it will allow us to solve some of the world’s most pressing economic, social and environmental problems. Data is now the engine of economic This is a reaction to massive security growth and prosperity. Countries that safeguard breaches and declining trust. promote data availability and use it for On the surface, this seems like a good societal good and economic idea—let’s give back control of personal development will lead the fourth
industrial revolution and give their citizens a better quality of life. But to seize this opportunity, people and businesses need to be able to share data with one another. Finally, regulatory overreach could disrupt the free flow of information, which is one of the digital age’s greatest benefits. For instance, the Los Angeles Times has responded to GDPR by cutting access to its website in most European countries—something that goes against the basics of the internet. Ironically, none of these new rules will have any impact on how data is protected. Almost half of IT decision makers in the EU note that cyber attackers will still find a way to access almost anything they want. More needs to be done to go after those who cause the most harm, such as those who engage in cybercrime and fraud. Government agencies should follow the money and prosecute those who commit fraud online. The right framework for Canada’s data economy is one that both creates trust and incentivizes innovation. In this new world, we cannot ignore the role that companies that are yet to be created will play—both as innovators and wealth creators. Canada’s framework for the data economy must help SMEs start up, grow and become world leaders in the digital space.
For more information, please contact: Scott Smith, Director, Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce at ssmith@chamber.ca.
September 2018
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Chamber at a Glance is published six times per year by the Brandon Chamber of Commerce 1043 Rosser Avenue | Brandon, MB R7A 0L5 Phone: (204) 571-5340 | Fax: (204) 571-5347
info@brandonchamber.ca www.brandonchamber.ca
EDITING & DESIGN PRINTING 2018-2019 BOARD OF DIRECTORS
CHAMBER STAFF
Who we are: The Brandon Chamber of Commerce is an independent, membership funded, non-profit organization that represents Brandon business from the grassroots level.
Our Mission: To encourage growth in the Brandon community by fostering a progressive business environment favorable to enhancing existing and attracting new business.
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www.brandonchamber.ca