The Kimberley Chamber of Commerce will be holding its annual general meeting on January 23, 2014 at the Kimberley Conference and Athlete Training Centre.
The meeting is an opportunity to reflect on the past year, hear about the agenda for the coming year, and elect or re-elect board members. The entire board does not change all at once, but this year Greg Bradley, Darren Close, Tamara Duggan, Kieran Hickey, Janet Johanson, Grant Sharam, Liana Shaw and Virginia Watson are coming to the end of their terms.
Nominations for board members are now being accepted. You can download a nomination form from kimberleychamber.com. You must be a Chamber member in good standing to make a nomination or stand for election.
It has been a busy, and change-filled 2013 for the Kimberley Chamber. In January they officially passed over responsibilities for the tourist information centre to Tourism Kimberley, who also moved their operations to the Chamber building in the Platzl parking lot. The Chamber office moved to a storefront on Wallinger Avenue. A new manager, Mike Guarnery, was also hired in 2013.
This was all part of a new, more business-focused approach for the Chamber. At the 2013 AGM, president Darrin Close said that the Chamber had set goals for itself. The desire was to work toward increasing membership by 15 per cent each year, growing event revenue by 20 per cent in the next three to five years and build a reserve fund of $15,000.
“We have to be financially responsible. We must increase value to our membership to be sustainable,” Close said. “Events have to be run in a profitable manner.”
2013 saw a number of initiatives begun by Kimberley business, including a couple of meetings looking at ways to revitalize the downtown and Platzl areas.