As we celebrate Small Business Week we should reflect on the role businesses bring to our community, as for a community to grow we need to have a variety of businesses to meet the consumers’ needs.

Every dollar that is spent locally helps to ensure that we keep the businesses that we have and allows others to see opportunities in starting new businesses, thus providing competition and more variety for the consumer. Shopping locally benefits everyone.

There are sure to be those who do not realize the importance of their local chamber of commerce. Chambers of commerce across the country are registered as boards of trade through Industry Canada.

The Cowichan Lake District Chamber of Commerce plays a vital role in the community and business owners need to support their chamber so that we can continue to support them. Belonging to your local chamber not only increases your visibility, but also allows you access to a wide range of cost saving benefits.

The chamber’s board of directors continues to actively promote our area’s businesses and is to be congratulated for its dedication to our communities.

The economic downturn we have all witnessed in 2009 brought challenges for most of our members that forced changes in business practices. Our businesses turn to all of us for support, making it more important than ever to shop locally and doing all we can to strengthen our local economy.

This past year has been particularly difficult for the chamber. For the first time in as long as anyone can remember we did not receive federal Canada Summer Jobs funding to hire students at the visitors centre during the busy summer months. This meant that we did not hire as many summer students as in past years and those we did hire saw reduced hours of work.

We have also yet to receive funding from Area F and Area I that we have received in past years, which helped offset the cost of operating the visitors’ centre.

There are sure to be those who do not understand the importance of having a visitors’ centre, which acts as a focal point for those who visit our communities. Here visitors can find information about the area as well as relocation information; thus far 2009 has seen more than 17,000 visitors come through our doors. The visitors’ centre also has computers where anyone can search the internet or do word processing. The capability is there for printing, photocopying, web hosting, business services such as business cards, rack cards, typing, data entry, to name but a few.

Our membership remains fairly consistent at approximately 130; our members enjoy the lowest membership rates in the Cowichan region and perhaps the province. The board recognizes that our members need advocacy while at the same time do all they can to keep the membership fees as low as possible.

Through fundraising events we leverage every dollar we receive through membership into $10. It is becoming harder and harder to maintain this level of fundraising and to do so we need businesses to come forward and volunteer to assist in organizing some of the activities.

Part of the annual membership fee also goes to the B.C. Chamber of Commerce and through the B.C. Chamber come benefits such as group insurance, gas savings, credit card and Interac services, to name but a few. A complete list of membership benefits can be found at www.bcchamber.org.

We want to continue to grow our membership and hope those businesses in the area that have not joined will reconsider. In order for all of us to prosper we need to stand together as one business community. As a chamber of commerce we represent and advocate for all businesses, whether we are working with the local politicians or taking our concerns to the provincial or federal levels of government.

Personally I believe that the future holds a great deal of opportunity. Each year we see more and more visitors come to our area, many of them seeking a place to live. There are some exciting developments in progress. Youbou Lands is but one of these projects. Once the CVRD gives fourth reading to this project it will certainly bring great benefit not only to the Youbou area, but the Cowichan Lake area as a whole.

There are other projects in the works throughout the area and that will bring jobs and a much needed economic boost to the area.

Within the chamber we have various committees; two of the most important are the economic development, and programs and events committees. The EDC works very closely with the local politicians and the CVRD researching and suggesting possible business ventures that will bring growth to the area.

The Programs and Events Committee plans and organizes the various events that the Chamber hosts throughout the Cowichan Lake area; we also have members sit on other committees, such as for Lake Days, Lady of the Lake and the Olympic Torch Relay, to name a few. Members of the community are welcome to volunteer to sit on any of these committees and by doing so we can accomplish so much more.

If you are interested in finding out more please call the visitors’ centre at 250-749-3244.