The Selkirk Biz Awards are accepting nominations until Oct. 12
The Selkirk Biz is the local chamber of commerce for the East St. Paul, Selkirk, St. Andrews, St. Clements, and West. St. Paul area. On Oct. 23, they will be hosting the Selkirk Biz Awards to recognize local businesses doing a great job, but first, they are hoping that the public can nominate local businesses that they feel have gone above and beyond.
“We’re an organization that is here to assist businesses and make and develop relationships between local businesses and come up with ways to encourage the local public to patronize their local businesses,” explained Brett Mitchell, Interim President of the Selkirk Biz.
Meaghan Chromy, the Executive Director of the Selkirk Biz, said that the awards dinner is a great way that the Biz and the community celebrate our local businesses.
“Our community is able to (nominate) local businesses in the area and celebrate the positives in our retail, manufacturing, and farming community. Every kind of business is represented,” she said.
Chromy said that local businesses contribute a lot to our local community. From philanthropy to having pride in making our community a beautiful place to be and everything in between, they give back in so many ways.
Mitchell explained that not all feedback that businesses get is positive, so having a night where people really appreciate the contribution of local businesses is important.
“I’ve been to many award ceremonies for different things, whether it’s business or charity, and everyone says the same thing, they don’t do this to get an award, but boy, it feels good to be recognized amongst your peers,” said Mitchell.
To get your favourite local businesses in consideration for the Selkirk Biz Awards, they need to be nominated into one of the ten awards categories which are: Business of the Year, Business Philanthropist of the Year, Community Spirit, Customer Service, Farm Family of the Year, Inclusive Employment, Marketing / Branding Member’s Choice Award, New Business of the Year, Visual Improvement, and Woman Entrepreneur of the Year.
Residents nominating their favourite local businesses should know that any business can be nominated, and anyone can do the nominating.
“Anybody can be nominated, not just a Selkirk Biz member. You can nominate any of our local businesses, anybody who made a difference to you in the past year. If you noticed anything with Visual Improvement or Best Business of the Year, there are 10 different categories to choose from. We do have a poll that we created, and you can go to our Facebook or Instagram, and there’s a link to that poll in order to vote. For more information, you can just email us,” said Chromy.
When contacting the Selkirk Biz about a business that you’d like to nominate, there is a nomination form that they’d like residents to fill out. The questions aren’t very difficult, but they do want information about your positive experience with the local business and what about them stood out to you.
“What kind of experience did you have? What have you found out about this business that makes you want to go ahead and make an effort to nominate?” said Mitchell.
Nominations will be accepted until Oct. 12. After then, the Biz will go through them as well as online information and make some big decisions.
After the awards are decided, they will be kept secret until Oct. 23 when the Selkirk Biz Awards Dinner will take place.
This year’s awards dinner is one to check out, whether you are a local business owner or not, because they have a great guest speaker set to come. Chuck Davidson, the president and CEO of the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce, will be the keynote speaker. He will be talking about shopping local and shopping Canadian. A topic that has become more significant in the past year.
The week of Oct. 23 is also significant as it’s small business week and many of the Selkirk Biz Award winners fit into that category, though the awards aren’t exclusive to that theme as larger businesses have been recognized as well.
If you would like to nominate a business, Chromy and Mitchell encourage you to take the time to contact the Biz and let them know why that business is great.
“It’s the people’s community. It’s important to hear their voice and to send out appreciation to our local businesses and community. It definitely helps the community thrive and support each other,” said Chromy.
They also welcome any businesses that are not part of the Selkirk Biz yet to get in contact with them and learn about the positives that come with Selkirk Biz membership.
If you would like to get tickets to the Selkirk Biz Awards Dinner to celebrate local businesses, the Selkirk Biz invites you to reach out to them by phone at 204-482-7176 or email at info@selkirkbiz.ca.
