The Columbia Valley Chamber of Commerce held its annual general meeting this week welcoming new members and stressing the area’s biggest challenges.
Executive director Pete Bourke says there was a good turnout.
“The AGM went really well. We had about 40 people in attendance. It was a pretty straightforward AGM agenda, but we had some great questions come from the floor to surround our activities from the past year and what we have coming up in store for next year.”
The new board of directors was voted in with nine returning and four new members.
Bourke said there are still a couple of spots remaining.
“We can go up to a maximum of 15 if others wanted to join throughout the year,” he said.
He said the meeting was a good opportunity to talk about the initiatives the chamber has accomplished over the last year.
“Last year with the support of the Columbia Valley Community Economic Development office and our tourism partners, we established the Columbia Valley Housing Society, which is its own stand-alone entity now,” he said.
“On the workforce side, we’ve launched Work Columbia Valley, which is a dedicated Columbia Valley worksite, that allows us to profile various businesses, jobs and opportunities.”
Now for the challenges, the valley is facing.
“The big three are obviously workforce, housing and transit and those things are all very interconnected with each other,” Bourke added.
“Transit is the big challenge. Working with BC Transit and working with our local government officials to see if there’s any way we can improve transit service and access to communities up here.”
