It’s been roughly six years since Westlock’s Chamber of Commerce held its last meeting.
The once-vibrant organization that had been behind signature local events like Wacky Saturday and actually started the fundraising committee that helped get Jubilee Arena built back in the early 1960s faded into oblivion with little more than a whimper.
With meeting attendance sporadic at best over the final few years and a business community indifferent to its mandate, no would can blame the organization for folding up its tent.
Certainly in Westlock the chamber has always had its work cut out for it due to the popularity of services clubs like Rotary, the Elks and Legion.
But maybe absence truly does make heart grow fonder.
Roughly two-dozen business leaders, including a pair of town councillors, took 90 minutes out of the lives and attended a Jan. 24 evening meeting to talk about reforming the organization.
Now while that number might not be as high as meeting organizer Nicolas Brown would have liked, it’s a start.
Brown deserves kudos for not only hosting the meeting, but putting together an impressive 11-page package detailing what the reborn chamber could look like — from the finances, to the governance structure, future events and its mandate.
His passion and enthusiasm for restarting the organization was clearly evident during his 30-minute presentation.
By the end of the night a six-person committee was formed to dig up some of the history of the old organization and begin pounding the pavement to get some buy-in from the business community.
And really that’s what it all comes down to.
An organization like a chamber can’t run, at least not properly, with only a handful of members … that’s what lead to the previous demise.
As a past president of the previous chamber stated that night, getting businesses to sign up and cut a membership cheque wasn’t the issue.
It was getting bodies in seats at meetings.
We urge business owners to talk to Brown, or one of the folks on the committee, and consider not only joining, but becoming active participants.
Westlock deserves a strong chamber of commerce, but only you can make it a reality.
