Chamber members from across Saskatchewan gathered for two days in North Battleford for the 2013 annual Saskatchewan Chamber Conference on Business.
It was the annual general meeting for the provincial Chamber to officially elect a new chair as well as rotation of officers. The convention also featured a conference on business, with speakers devoted to business as well as professional development for Chamber members.
The first day of the event took place at Western Development Museum, with day two happening at the Dekker Centre with the official AGM, policy sessions and presentations.
Among the presenters was Patrick McGaughey, who has wide-ranging professional experience in broadcasting and business association management. He has led three chambers of commerce to financial success, including in Idaho where his local Chamber broke the 1,000-member mark.
Another speaker was Richard Payette, a first vice-chair of the Canadian Chamber and member of the national management team, who spoke in an early address to begin the conference Wednesday. Thursday's agenda featured speaker and marketing guru Jeph Maystruck to talk about the social media revolution and how that can be used to improve local Chambers and business.
The inauguration of the new chair for 2013, Marion Ghiglione, was celebrated at a dinner Wednesday night at Gold Ridge Centre in North Battleford.
An estimated 90 people were on hand for the two-day gathering, with about two-thirds representing chambers across the province.
The contingent from the host Battlefords Chamber was strong, as expected, for the much-anticipated event. In the audience were president Sharon Mohagen, past-president Pat Smith and Executive Director Linda Machniak, as well as other local Chamber directors and staff.
According to Fred Titanich, who up until Thursday was the chair of the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce, the event gave members from around the province a chance to look at the various issues facing Chambers and businesses.
"Probably the biggest one is the labour shortage, particularly the skilled labour shortage," said Titanich.
He expected that to be a major subject of discussion during the two days of the conference. As well, several policy resolutions were up for debate Thursday. About five expert committees meet throughout the year to develop those, Titanich said, with some focusing on investment and growth, others on finance and others on human resource development. Local chambers also brought forth resolutions, he said.
A big reason North Battleford hosted the conference this year was because of the anniversary year.
"Being a provincial chamber we move our meeting around from year to year, and this being North Battleford's 100th anniversary we thought it was appropriate to come here," said Titanich.
It was also a good opportunity for chamber members to see for themselves those activities going on outside the major centres.
"It's very easy for business people to concentrate on Regina and Saskatoon, but it's nice to get to some of the smaller centres and see the exciting things being done there."
Among the sights and sounds that provincial Chamber participants took part in Wednesday was a tour of the new Northland Power facility outside of North Battleford.
Titanich called that project an "interesting concept for how to develop infrastructure in the future, because we have a lot of challenges in how we are going to generate enough capital to take care of the infrastructure needs of our growing population. Private projects like this are a great way to get the private sector involved, to get them innovating and to get the use of capital without the government going into debt to do it."
