It was a cold and stormy night when business owners from Selkirk, St. Clements, St. Andrews and West St. Paul gathered for the Selkirk Biz’s 122nd annual general meeting (AGM) last week. Along with the passing of the torch to the next round of board members, important discussions were had about priorities and what direction The Biz will be taking now that businesses are finally seeing the effects of the pandemic settle.
Selkirk Biz President Brett Mitchell called the meeting to order and adopted the meeting minutes from the last AGM before delivering the president’s report.
“We’re certainly not what we were back in 2018 and 2019. The world is certainly a different place and we’re all having to try to get used to it. In 2023, it was a busy year for our organization,” said Mitchell.
The Selkirk Biz is the name of the Chamber of Commerce organization that represents and connects business owners in Selkirk, St. Clements, St. Andrews and West St. Paul. The organization was founded as The Board of Trade of the Town of Selkirk in 1901 and though they have expanded as well as had a few name changes in their history, The Biz has been a continuously running local group for well over 100 years.
One of the biggest changes in the past year for the organization is the addition of Alice Skalesky as executive director replacing her mother Sheri Skalesky who previously held the position for many years.
After welcoming Skalesky to the group, Mitchell acknowledged some of the high points of the year for the organization which included a complete revamp to their website and the Selkirk Parade, which the Selkirk Biz is the host of, coming back as an annual event as the pandemic cancelled such activities in previous years.
“The crowd was phenomenal and it went off without a hitch. Everyone who went had a good time there [were 42 floats]. It was an awesome event,” said Mitchell.
He also acknowledged the hard work of Jim Pelletier this past year as volunteer coordinator mentioning his success in gaining volunteers which made events run smoother and more safely.
“We also had our first Biz Awards in three years. That was a fantastic occasion,” said Mitchell, “It was so great to be able to get back together again and celebrate our business community.”
Alice Skalesky then spoke briefly about the Biz’s financials including their Biz Bucks program. In addition to loans being paid off, the Biz Bucks program continues to grow.
“From what I’ve seen from records, we have been steadily increasing sales each year. So, that’s awesome. We’ve just passed the $2 million mark also, which is very exciting. We had over $100,000 in Biz Bucks sales during the holiday season so that was a lot of work in December,” she said.
The discussion continued with mention of the various events that The Biz plans to host this year.
Nomination and voting for board positions were next up on the agenda. The new board of the Selkirk Biz in 2024 will see Jim Pelletier taking on the president role once again, Wendy Meger as 1st vice president and Kerri Portree taking the 2nd vice president spot. Brett Mitchell will be assuming the role of past president. The Biz is still actively looking for volunteers willing to take on secretary and treasurer roles.
In addition to the election of its executive officers, The Selkirk Biz will see six people take on director positions. They are Shawn Trudeau, Colleen Allan, Kelly Cook, Josh Zanewich, Meaghan Chromy, and Brittany Hiebert. Appointed representatives include Starlene Mosienko of the Lord Selkirk School Division, Coun. Justin Fiebelkorn of the RM of St. Andrews, Coun. Rob Belanger of the RM of St. Clements, Mayor Peter Truijen of the RM of West St. Paul and Tim Feduniw of the City of Selkirk.
Incoming president Jim Pelletier then came to the podium to discuss his top four priorities for The Biz for the upcoming year.
“My main priorities obviously are shop local initiatives. One of them is the Biz Bucks program and then the other one is our Chamber Channel,” said Pelletier.
The Biz Bucks program is a well-known gift card program in our community run by the Selkirk Biz that has local businesses selling gift cards that can only be used at their locations or the locations of other partnering businesses in the community. This keeps dollars circulating in our local area.
The Chamber Channel is an online shopping platform that connects buyers with businesses in our community that they can shop from. It combines the convenience of shopping online with the knowledge that residents are supporting their local community and not a large national or international corporation. Though this initiative has been in its beginning stages for some time now, The Biz will focus on bringing more businesses and residents to the platform this year.
“[The Chamber Channel is] going to be talked about a lot, a lot of advertising will be coming out over the next few months to different businesses, as well as on social media, just to draw more attention to it first. Before we completely roll it out to the public, we want more businesses to be enrolled,” said Pelletier.
Pelletier’s third priority for 2024 is the growth of The Biz.
“My growth goal every year is five per cent, year over year,” he said.
One of the ways mentioned that The Biz plans to get the word out to the community is that each community within its region will see an event hosted in its region.
The final priority that Pelletier discussed with the group was continuing to support the health and longevity of The Biz. Some points related to this discussion that were mentioned were the possible expansion of The Biz to include businesses in East St. Paul, connecting with chambers of commerce in neighbouring areas to find areas of mutual interest and to exchange ideas, and expanding the organization’s connectivity with other organizations in our region.
The floor then was opened to discussion where thoughts were shared about The Biz’s future. Business owners made suggestions about connecting to young people, getting back to basics, connecting with more small businesses as well as concentrating energy on a smaller number of high-quality efforts.
After the lively discussion, the meeting ended on a positive note.
“It’s going to be interesting times in 2024 and very exciting times in 2024,” said Pelletier.
