BusinessCommunity

CBS Chamber adds directors, updates bylaws

By Chris Lewis | June 10, 2021

The Conception Bay Area Chamber of Commerce elected four new directors last month as its members prepare for doing business in the face of another year of Covid uncertainty.

The Chamber also announced some bylaw changes at its annual general meeting, which was held online Wednesday, May 26.

The addition of the four new directors brings the Chamber’s board to a complement of 10. The new members include Cyril Bonia of ProActive Wellness Centre, Allison Wade of O’Keefe Wade Tax & Estate Planning Law, Stephen Wilson of E’Raven Inc., and Michelle Porter of Sisters in Fitness.

“I’m looking forward to offering my experience to the chamber as everyone collectively strives to improve our communities as a whole,” said Bonia.

The Chamber’s executive committee includes Thomas Williamson of Blue Ocean Development and Andrea Gosse of Platinum Construction Company Ltd., as co-chairpersons, replacing Margo Soucy of CBDC Cabot, who moves into the past-chair position. Jerry Young of Villa Nova Pharmacy has been named the chamber’s secretary and treasurer.

“This has been an interesting year,” said Soucy, who conducted the AGM’s proceedings alongside executive director Heather Howard. “I think it’s a pretty good mix of businesses that we have in our membership.”

Soucy, who provided an overview of the chamber’s past year in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, said one of their first objectives was to modernize some of the bylaws, which had been created alongside the chamber itself in the 1980s.

“Mainly, we updated the objective to have a more current sense of what we do for our members in terms of networking and marketing opportunities,” Soucy said.

From a digital perspective, a lot of those bylaws were amended to incorporate the digital era.

She said one of the big things was to acknowledge virtual meetings as a proper form of meeting, since things like Zoom, which has become commonplace in recent months for many companies, had not existed when the chamber itself was founded.

“We’ve noted that as an acceptable means of AGM delivery,” Soucy said. “And, it’s worked really well. I think our attendance will probably go up if we can do a hybrid of virtual and in-person for people who are on the road a lot.”

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