Our members are extremely important to us. In fact, it’s what drives us to grow and improve as an organization. At the end of the day, if our members aren’t satisfied with the program and services we deliver, we’re not doing our job as an organization.

Over the past few months, we surveyed you – our members – to find out what we are doing well, and what we can improve on to make your experience as a Chamber member better. Your feedback is important to us, and we promise to do our best to make our organization a vital partner in your business growth and success.

After looking at what you told us, it became obvious what we need to do – nearly 60 per cent of the people we surveyed asked for more ways to develop your business. With this in mind, we’ve introduced a number of new programs and services to meet your needs.

More economic analysis

To provide members with analysis on the latest economic developments and market trends, and what it means for their business we’ve introduced Breaking it Down for Business. These regular videos provide valuable insight from our Chief Economist, Ben Brunnen. 

This week Brunnen looks at the most recent labour force and building permit numbers from Statistics Canada, and delves into the ongoing crisis in Greece. 

Learn more about these issues and find out how they’ll affect your business.

More learning opportunities

To provide members with more opportunities to learn from one another we’ve introduced our Member Expert series. This program taps into the expert knowledge of our membership, with member companies leading sessions that share business insights with attendees. The primary goal of these sessions is to improve members’ business practices in areas where their own business knowledge may be limited, such as human resource management, communications and marketing.

So far in the series we’ve heard from Lindsay Hutter, global director of H+K Strategies change and internal communications practice leader, on how to improve communication during a period of corporate change. Get the resource guide (Members only) 

The next Member Expert event will be on Thursday, May 31 and will feature a talk on government relations for small businesses from Jason Hatcher, partner with Spotlight Strategies, one of Alberta’s premier boutique government relations and communications consulting firms.

Learn more about this Member Expert event.

More networking opportunities

To provide members with another networking opportunity, we’ve introduced Connect for Lunch. This is a business networking activity designed for Chamber members to grow and connect their business.  

The format for this event is different from other networking events. Before each event, attendees are encouraged to contact the Chamber to tell us about their business, their challenges and the type of people they’d like to connect with to overcome these problems and grow their business. With this information, our events team gets to work placing people at each attendees table who will meet their networking needs.

To assist in professional growth throughout this event, Connect for Lunch frequently brings in guest speakers who share insights on everything from networking tips to getting the most out of the professional networking website LinkedIn.    

The next Connect for Lunch will be on Wednesday, June 13 and will feature a talk with Ranil Herath, president of the DeVry Institute of Technology, on how to build business relationships that last for life.

Learn more about this networking event.  

Sincerely,

Adam Legge, president and CEO, Calgary Chamber