BUSINESS IN THE VALLEY

Business in the Valley BUSINESS NEWS

Submitted Photo

The Arts Station

601 1st Ave 250-423-4842

The much loved Banner Project is back for another year and the Fernie Arts Station is calling out to the amazing artists that call the Elk Valley home, to once again contribute by submitting your artwork via theartsstation.com.

For over the past decade, Elk Valley artists have added their own air to the city’s streets, offering works of art for banners that line Highway 3 and downtown. This is a community art project so any Fernie local is welcome to apply and the Arts Station looks forward to seeing lots of different art mediums from all ages.

The launch will be in September for 2021 and the timeframe is shorter to get your artwork submitted so don’t wait! If you need help, on July 7 they are holding a Banner assistance day, check The Arts Station website for more details! Thank you to the City of Fernie for supporting this project. Submitted Photo

East Kootenay Community Credit Union

1601 9th Ave 250-423-9222

Local credit unions and businesses strengthen our community, connect and support the social fibre, and enhance wealth and employment by circulating dollars repeatedly between businesses. Local retailers recirculate 63% compared to 14% for chains, local restaurants recirculate 68% compared to 30% for chains, and local suppliers recirculate 33% compared to 19% for chains.*

What can you do? Start a business, sell what you make and grow, and bank locally at a credit union!

As businesses recirculate dollars, so do credit unions. Profits go back to the people who bank there and to the communities served.

East Kootenay Community Credit Union (EKCCU.COM) grew from members who believed there was a better way to bank and continues to work in the best interest of its members. They understand the East Kootenay lifestyle and what it takes to succeed financially. EKC is run on cooperative principles, using profits for your good.

*bcbuylocal.com/why-local/

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Business in the Valley BUSINESS NEWS

Submitted Photo

GearHub Sports

gearhub.ca 250-423-5555

Introducing GearHub Adventure Rentals! Conveniently located on 7th Avenue, directly across from the Best Western Fernie Mountain Lodge.

Opening July, GearHub’s second location will offer a broad range of winter and summer sports rental equipment for adults and kids. Their summer rental fleet will include mountain bikes (allmountain and downhill), stand up paddle boards, kayaks and more.

When you need to gear up for a day of outdoor activities, check out GearHub Adventure Rentals! With competitive daily/hourly rental options as well as multi-day and group package discounts, Adventure Rentals caters to those who want to try a new sport, as well as experienced veterans who want highquality gear rental and service they can depend on.

Do you love epic adventures and the outdoors? Do you eat, breathe, and sleep bikes and gear? GearHub is looking for staff to join their expanding team. Check out gearhub.ca for more information. Submitted Photo

Raging Elk Hostel

892 6th Ave 250-423-6811

The Raging Elk has raised the bar for solo travel. Taking inspiration from Japan’s capsule hotels, business owners Joe and Sadie have pivoted their business to provide a whole floor of deluxe POD only accommodation.

What is a POD? It is the evolution of budget friendly, world-class solo travel. Think privacy and all of the amenities of a small hotel room at half the price. Guests can enjoy soft, individualized, dimmable LED lighting, convenient lockable storage area to charge electronics while enjoying the mountains, mirror, shelving, soundproof walls, WiFi and complete privacy.

This will be the first POD accommodation to be offered in the Canadian Rockies that will be attractive to any solo mountain adventurist and all age groups.

In addition to the POD floor, travellers can enjoy an array of relaxation areas over the 4,000 sq ft inside, two large patios, outdoor fire pits and the Kodiak Lounge.

Explore our ever growing BC Wine Selection

Patio Dining & Take-out Available

parkplacelodge.com 742 Hwy #3 | 250-423-6871

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SUMMER COURSES IN FERNIE:

Our first aid and safety courses are being taught in-classroom with strict safety precautions in place.

First Aid and Safety Lifestyle and Leisure

z St. John Standard for Industry | July 5 z Transportation Endorsement | July 7 z Occupational First Aid Level 1 | July 12 z St. John Standard for Industry | August 3 z Transportation Endorsement | August 5 z Occupational First Aid Level 1 | August 9 z *Becoming a Home Herbalist | July 6 z Elk River Discovery Camp (Ages 7-10) | July 19 z Elk River Discovery Camp (Ages 7-10) | July 26 z *Bike Maintenance | August 4 z Elk River Discovery Camp (Ages 10-14) | August 9 z Elk River Discovery Camp (Ages 10-14) | August 16

*These are virtual live courses that are taught in web-based classrooms.

For more information on courses, please visit our website at cotr.bc.ca/continuing-education or phone 250-423-4691

Business in the Valley TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

Discovering the Path to Economic Recovery and Growth

by BRAD PARSELL

With the BC Restart plan now well underway and more of our local businesses returning to something resembling prepandemic operations, the Fernie Chamber’s focus now is on setting the stage for our local economy’s recovery and growth. What do our businesses need to thrive in a postCOVID world? What are going to be the major challenges facing our local economy? Are we positioned and diversified enough to be resilient in the face of another major disaster or economic disruption? What do we need to implement to be an attractive and sustainable community in which to work, invest, live, and play?

As our organization and our partners in the Elk Valley started to weigh these questions coming out of the third wave of the pandemic, we recognized that this discovery process is going to take a lot of meaningful economic development work. Economic development usually refers to programs, policies or activities that seek to improve the economic well-being and quality of life for a community. Economic development can look different depending on the community, but generally consists of strategies such as creating more jobs and job variety, keeping current businesses and attracting new ones, more productive use of lands and property, getting more skilled workers to live in the community, and generally increasing the quality of life and opportunity for local residents.

Many communities have an Economic Development Officer or similar function either on staff at the local municipal government or contracted out to a third party like a Chamber of Commerce. It is typically these roles that lead the charge on economic development, and many of the above strategies they work on are based on good quality data – often collected thorough surveys of businesses currently operating in the community. As we evaluated our next steps to help support our local economy, we realized that there are gaps in the economic data available to us that is going to make meaningful economic development work difficult.

We started to scan the environment for opportunities to build capacity in this area for our communities in the Elk Valley. Enter the Economic Trust of the Southern Interior BC (or ETSI-BC) who in the spring released a grant opportunity to support business and economic recovery in the region. On behalf of the local governments, Chambers and other stakeholders in the Elk Valley, the Fernie Chamber was successful in its application to this funding stream which has enabled us to hire a full-time Elk Valley Economic Recovery Advisor on a one-year contract. We are so excited to announce that Taylor Jenkins has been hired for this new position! So, what will Taylor be doing on our behalf? Over the next 12-months he will be engaging with as many businesses as possible up and down the Elk Valley to help us better understand the needs and challenges of our various sectors as we come out of the pandemic. Taylor will also be conducting much needed market research on things like cost of doing business data (e.g. average lease rates in different areas, average wages by sector, etc.) and will be pulling this all together into brand new community profiles and business retention reports with action items that can be used by our local governments, Chambers and other stakeholders as we navigate this important economic development work.

Stay tuned for more on this amazing opportunity to discover more about the Elk Valley’s economic development needs.

Raven Eye Photography/Fernie Chamber

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