Chamber Chatter
by Rita Dustow, president
We have been a busy group since our annual general meeting this February.
The Spring Fling Dinner in April was well attended and the nine Lady of the Lake candidates were introduced. It’s so amazing to see these young ladies hesitantly taking their first steps at public speaking then confidently presenting themselves a few weeks later. Good job Lady of the Lake Society, we appreciate all that you do.
I attended the local area chamber meeting in Parksville, B.C. at the end of April. It was very informative and good to know that we have a group advocating for us. I also got to meet a lot of the other Chamber presidents and tourism representatives from the Island.
May long-weekend saw us at Heritage Days where Katherine Worsley, Cowichan Lake Chamber of Commerce Visitor Information Centre manager, and summer students Jessica Sandhu and Susanne Tardiff, had cookies, juice and coffee for all who attended. Gil Mauro and his wife explained the legend of Stin–qua, and the family bike parade in the park went well. We will hopefully attract more families next year.
June saw us volunteering at the Area F and I breakfast in the town for Lake Days. We served over 1,325 breakfasts. I am so happy Symon Whalvin had his trusty Swiss Army knife as we needed it to open the tins of Tim Hortons’ coffee. It was a lot of fun and thanks to the firemen for cooking and all the volunteers for the great help.
At the end of June the chamber had our summer barbecue hosted by Brenda Brompton of Cowichan Riverside Cottage — what a beautiful setting. Steaks and chicken were cooked by myself and Whalvin. It was a lot of fun and every one brought a dish of food to share. Beth Kidd’s salad dressing was a favourite. Our thanks to Worsley and the other volunteers for set-up and breakdown, and to the Bromptons for allowing us to use their beautiful property.
As requested by the businesses on South Shore road we met with the council to present their written concerns in reference to the empty and unkept business properties. We are now in the process of mailing out a letter of request to those business to upgrade them to make our town more attractive.
I also met with Mayor Forrest and Councillor Day, and I think we are well on the way to a better understanding and willingness to work together for the betterment of the whole area because we all need to work together to make the Cowichan Lake area a better business place for established business and more attractive for new business.
We have a formed a group of board members to promote new membership and the marketing of business events. We have 13 new members. Welcome to you all and I hope to come and introduce myself to you very soon. We now have a total of 113 members including non-profit groups.
I would also like to ask anyone who has ideas on marketing and developing businesses to contact me at: rita@cowichanlake.ca