Bow Island Chamber of Commerce gets ready for summer season

By Anna Smith

Commentator/Courier

At their May 2 meeting, the Bow Island Chamber of Commerce prepared for summer tourism, markets, and making the most of their new strategic plan.

Both summer job positions have been funded, which has led to very strong advertising for workers; while there have been applications for the high school position, the interest in the university position has been scarce. There had been a Mount Royal University student who had initially reached out, but had since decided against it, and the hope is that reaching out to nearer institutions might yield some results.

Tourism is starting off the summer on a strong note with the upcoming Ladies Night on May 12 at 7 p.m., as well as the planting of the town’s flowers for beautification after the long weekend.

There’s only one more meeting in June before Market in the Park starts up for the summer, but planning is going smoothly thus far, and there are talks of getting food vendors in to compliment the vendors. 

The meeting also featured Theresa Hardiker from Verge Economic Development to discuss the results from the strategic planning meeting.

“So we did a bit of an activity on what our roles would be, how we see ourselves in the community, what are the opportunities that we have to be able to move forward. With all strategic planning, always some things that are a good thing, or also can be seen as negative, definitely the capacity but because you are involved within the community, your capacity is very good, because you’re ingrained and have an understanding of what goes on in the community,” said Hardiker during the meeting. 

“Some of the goals, I don’t think you really changed the needle too much on them. You want to be able to advocate, you want to be able to act on behalf of businesses, you want to be able to support and bring the businesses together,” said Hardiker. “There are quite a few benefits that you have the opportunity to be able to bring to the businesses in the area.”

Some challenges in communication were identified, but opportunities as well, especially in the online realm of social media and a fresh webpage on the horizon and networking opportunities for those they advocate for.

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