You can read the full president’s report below. Or download a PDF here:
Two years ago, at the start of my term as president, as a group we looked at what we wanted for this organization. It had been decided that we wanted to make this association more valuable to its members and take it back to be an association to support and promote the businesses of Cole Harbour. We determined that networking, education, and marketing were the key areas for our members. We had a good year and accomplished many of these goals in that year.
This year was the second of my two-year term as President of the association, and I again feel a good sense of pride in what was accomplish, especially as a completely volunteer run organization. We started the year off as usual with our AGM here at the farm, with a lovely breakfast and establishment of our executive.
We continued with our education focus and had our first speaker of the year at our regular meeting in November, Nicole Gallant, our member from SmartCat Marketing, speaking to us on digital marketing and How to get yes to your proposal. In December we had Nola Lemoureux Spierenburg of AC Hunter Tellier Belgrave Adamson Chartered accountants speak on the op 10 Healthy habits of financial management.
In February, Marisa DeMarco of Community Connexions Network NS spoke on Community involvement for small business.
In April we had Mike Petrosoniak from Efficiency NS speak to us on the small business energy solutions program. In June we had Jen Crowe from Chase Paymentech speak on Point of Purchase systems and in September our speaker was Darren Fisher, MP on about small business and the importance of economic growth in the area. As well in April our venue for regular meetings changed to the Cole Harbour Firehall, giving us more room and less noise for our meetings. So thanks to the Westphal-Cole Harbour Firefighters association for that.
As well in the area of education, we held two free 40-hour courses for our members put on through the department of Labour & Advanced education. The first from January to April was Growing your business through speaking and writing with Debi Hartlen MacDonald. The second was Financial Management for Small Business with Bonnie O’Toole. Both were very well received and a great value for your membership dollars!
Networking was also a priority for our members, and we held our May open event at Party on People. There was food and beverages and people even played laser tag. A really great event that will be hard to top this year. As well, at this event, the honour of being the Cole Harbour & Area Business of the Year was awarded to Walker’s Feed & Livestock owned by our members Craig and Michelle Walker. Congratulations once again on their many successes.
Our second networking event was our annual Corn BBQ here at the Cole Harbour Heritage Farm. We had a beautiful day as usual and the food was awesome. It was also well attended, and much enjoyed by members and guests.
Our Community events for the year were our Annual Cole Harbour Business Association Christmas Tree lighting which was a great success as usual. And our Heritage Day Free Skate at Cole Harbour Place. Both events were enjoyed by the public and a great opportunity for our businesses to give back to the community.
Last but not least, the big project for the year was the remaking of our web site. This was a topic for several years and was a stumbling block in so many ways. Finally, this year we got a great committee going on it and then Nicole Gallant and Clarke MacDonald took the project on and made it happen. I am so happy to say that the web site is up and running and ready to be used by our members and the public. I have tested the online membership form and it works well. We are now ready for members to load up their information as they renew. This will allow our members and the public to link directly to member websites and see what is going on in Cole Harbour. One of the big advantages as well will be the ability for people to link from Discover Halifax website directly to the Cole Harbour website and then to our members. It will truly add value to the CHABA membership and allow us to move forward to communicating on the 21 Century platforms. And with that being said, we have confirmed our next speaker for November 6 will be Erica Pellerin form Discover Halifax to tell us all how it works and get our members involved in this excellent opportunity.
At this time, I would like to thank my wonderful executive Karina Sanford, Graham McOuat, Marisa DeMarco, Ryan Rutledge and Ron Cooper for all there work this year and their help in making this a successful year and also a lot of fun. I especially want to thank Graham McOuat as the Treasurer position is not an easy one, but he has always been up to the task and I have always been able to count on him. Graham will be stepping down from our executive, but I am sure will be around for many events to come. I already have him committed to the Tree lighting committee. I also want to especially thank Nicole Gallant and Clarke MacDonald for their tireless work on our web site. It is going to make a huge difference in our ability to communicate as an association.
I will be stepping down as President, so thank you to everyone for their support during my 2-year term. I have very much enjoyed my involvement and will continue as Past President to lend my support and continue as your Tree lighting chair.
I look forward to an excellent 2019/20 for our Business Association, and look forward to working and doing business with all of you.
Respectfully submitted,
Carolyn Judd, CHABA President 2017 -2019.