The Drumheller and District Chamber of Commerce saw an injection of new blood into its board with four new members.
The Chamber held its Annual General Meeting on Wednesday, March 27 at the Badlands Community Facility. There were five vacancies on their board after former president Brock Harrington resigned earlier this year. This year also saw Vanessa Page and Jeff Palmquist depart the board. Cameron Sinclair’s term concluded this year and he did not let his name stand.
Darryl Reid of Pro-Active Building Maintenence let his name stand. Also filling new spots on the board are John Shoff of Reality Bytes, Mike Bell of Western GM, Jared Potter of Centre Street Insurance and Shannon Wade of Hi-Way 9 Express.
Following the meeting, the executive held a short meeting and Jeff Hall of MNP was appointed president, the vice president is Cindy Clark of Canalta and Nathan Fleming of RBC is Secretary-Treasurer.
About 70 came out to the AGM and Hall was pleased with the turnout and the new faces.
“Our board is structured so four director positions come up every year, so every three years you could have a new board if everyone stepped aside,” said Hall.
He says a priority in the coming year will be communication.
“Obviously being able to communicate better is a priority,” Hall said. “Everybody has to work on communication, listening, and more clearly express our own thoughts on where we are going and what the Chamber does.”
He also says maximizing partnership opportunities with other groups and organizations in the community will be a focus.
Reid is entering his second term on the board and he feels the Chamber should have more visibility.
“I am quite happy going forward, I think we have some good new members to add to the complexion of our group and I am quite optimistic about how things are going to unfold in the future,” he said.
“We are going to have a table at our own tradeshow because one of the things I personally have found is people are just not aware of the activities the Chamber is involved with and as a result, we seem like we are irrelevant. The responsibility is on us to let people know what we are doing, what we want to do and how to get involved.”
Shoff may be newly acclaimed to the board, however he has previously served as president. He likes the new look.
“It will bring some new ideas, and experience from people who have been there,” he said. “My biggest goal for being back involved is I really want to see the chamber do as much as they can for the membership and however we can possibly achieve that.”
One hot topic at the meeting is the future of the World’s Largest Dinosaur. The Chamber held a round table session for attendees to brainstorm on what the future of the icon should be. Manager Heather Bitz said they will be taking the fruits of the discussion and compiling it for the board to study.
