With more provincial COVID-19 restrictions now in place, the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce won’t have a lot of opportunity to put on large-scale events early in 2021.
Still, what they might do in 2021 came up as a topic at the last chamber directors meeting of the year, held on the Zoom platform on Dec. 15.
One major event usually scheduled for late January is the annual Chair’s Banquet (formerly President’s Banquet). The 2021 event would, under normal circumstances, see current chair Harris Sutherland pass the gavel to the current second-in-command, Melanie Roberts of North West College, and see the swearing in of Roberts and the new Chamber executive.
But with banquets being a prime source of COVID-19 infection, and with gathering restrictions in place, it is unlikely to go ahead in the usual format.
Instead, the Chamber has discussed holding the event as a catered lunch instead. By “catered,” Chamber chief operating officer Linda Machniak said, they mean “catered out at their place of business.”
Details are sketchy, but more information is expected to come in the coming weeks about what the revised format will entail.
Also up in the air is the Chamber on Tap series normally held at Porta Bella Restaurant, due to the latest size restrictions on restaurants.
The last Chamber on Tap event scheduled for Dec. 3, 2020 had been postponed, and the hope was to reschedule it for early in the new year. But Machniak told the board that with restrictions the way they are, “that won’t be happening any time soon.”
Machniak noted she is “shy” about scheduling too many Chamber events in the first half of the year given the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. The annual Post-Budget luncheon with the provincial minister of Finance, as well as the Power Hour with area political leaders, would also normally fall within that time frame. Machniak indicated some of these events might have to be put off.
At this point, there is no plan to postpone the annual general meeting early in the year, which Machniak indicated will go ahead.
A number of Chamber events were postponed or cancelled in 2020 due to the pandemic. Those axed in 2020 included the post-budget event, the annual golf tournament, and the annual Holly and Heels luncheon.
The Chamber was able to get in both the Chair’s Banquet and the Power Hour before the pandemic hit. The Power Hour was held just a week before the provincial shutdown.
After a quiet summer, the chamber was able to resume events in the fall including the annual BBEX awards, which were transformed into “BBEX Goes to the Movies” in November to comply with public health protocols.
The chamber also resumed Chamber on Tap events and also staged provincial and municipal election forums. The forums were taped at the Western Development Museum for Access TV, without spectators present.
