By Tim Tucker

Executive Director

I wanted to start off by thanking each and every person who came out to our events over the last month or so. We had close to 60 people at the Luncheon with the Finance Minister in early February, another 30 people at our membership incentives event in mid-February and another 15 or so at the Retirement Planning Lunch n’ Learn in conjunction with RBC in late February.
We hold these types of events to be educational and to allow our members to network with other business owners. We hope this will lead to a sharing of ideas and scenarios that will allow everyone to grow. Two of the three aforementioned events were completely free and brought in a great turn out.
At the membership incentives event –which was geared toward current and potential members to get them more familiarized with the Chamber, what is does, how it works and what types of programs are available with a membership – I mentioned something that I want to bring up again here. As with any Chamber in Canada, you will get out of the Truro and District Chamber of Commerce exactly what you put into it.
Buying a membership here and never going to any of our events or taking advantage of our incentive programs is like buying a gym membership and then never going for a workout or buying a membership at a golf course and never hitting the links. The vast majority of our operational funding comes from membership fees so it pains me to say this, but if you buy a membership into the Chamber and never plan to use it, you’ve wasted your money.
Speaking of the Luncheon with the Finance Minister, Graham Steele, once again stated the provincial government’s commitment to balance the budget by the 2013 budget year. This is an initiative that we at the Chamber certainly agree with.
The economic well-being of any province is tied to how well the government manages its funds and we believe it is imperative that the books be balanced and we begin paying down our massive debt load. At the same time, there is concern with the way things are going. Over the last two years or so, business owners have faced higher costs for HST, minimum wage rates, electricity, commercial taxes, assessments, etc. Balancing the budget is a great move, but if costs continue to go up, it will not help our province become more attractive to potential investors. A balance between these two most certainly needs to be found.
March is now upon us and we have more great events coming up. On March 7, we hosted our Annual General Meeting at the Marigold Cultural Centre. Here we were presented with our Annual Audit and held the swearing in of our new Executive and Board members.
Our 122nd Annual Dinner is coming up on March 22 and will be a great event as always. Our guest speaker this year is the Vice-President of Corporate Development with Irving Shipyards, Mike Roberts. Mr. Roberts will speak about the importance of the military shipbuilding contract to this province and the Colchester Region as well. We’ll also be handing out our Lifetime Achievement Award (the winner was not picked by the time this article was printed but will be announced before the event). Check our website for full details and see you there.