Here are a few items from the most recent Battlefords Chamber of Commerce monthly meeting on May 16:
Fresh off the heels of meetings with city officials the previous Monday on the City of North Battleford’s budget revisions, Battlefords chamber president Warren Williams is coming off meetings with the Saskatchewan chamber on May 10 and 11.
Williams, along with first vice-president Terry Caldwell, was attending their provincial AGM in Regina. Among the meetings was with the Saskatchewan chamber board as well as with Dr. Gordon Barnhart, president of the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association.
While he didn’t get into specifics, Williams noted a lot of questions were directed at Barnhart as to how to handle the whole issue of provincial funding cuts to municipalities.
“I learned a few things from Dr. Barnhart with regard to advocacy and how SUMA is advocating,” said Williams.
He categorized Barnhart as a “statesman,” and believes his approach will not be one of a “hammer” but of “statesmanship and honest dialogue.”
In other news, chamber directors continued to express interest in the marketing app proposal put forward to the board by Nathan Puffalt earlier this year.
Puffalt had pitched his proposal of a year-round “Chamber Market the Battlefords” app, which would be an enhanced and rebranded version of the Shop the Battlefords app that was launched for the previous Christmas holiday season.
A recommendation was put before Tuesday meeting to go ahead with it, but the chamber was still looking at further negotiations before the app proposal is officially a go.
Finally, the “washroom debate” continues to rage on, as chamber directors are revisiting their recent decision to close the visitor washrooms at their offices at the junction of Highway 16 and 40 as of March 1.
The decision was made as the chamber doesn’t operate a visitor centre at the location anymore and no longer had the staff resources to devote to maintenance of the public washrooms.
But a steady amount of tourists continues to stop at the chamber offices looking to use the washrooms there, only to leave in frustration.
Concern was expressed that this casts North Battleford in an unwelcoming light. Executive director Linda Machniak said it “really puts a bad spin on the face on the community, when we’re the front door and we’re turning people away.”
Still, the cost to the Chamber in terms of money and staff time remains an issue. There were plans to bring up the issue with Destination Battlefords to see if they could help in finding a solution.
