Four new faces elected to the Diamond Valley Chamber of Commerce board of directors have promised to bring changes to benefit the region’s local businesses.
Lifelong Millarville resident Clayton Foster was elected as the board’s president at the chamber’s Feb. 9 meeting. The rest of the new executive will consist of independent new media marketing consultant Chris Koene as vice-president, Koop’s Auto and Trailer Service owner Melodie Webber-Koopman as treasurer, and Blue Rock Gallery co-owner Chris Weingarth as secretary.
As co-owner of Stirr! Adventures in Food, a gourmet specialty kitchen store in Black Diamond, Foster comes with an extensive business background.
He also owns an excavation company, and helped establish the Diamond Valley Open Roads Media Group along with Koene, an online local business directory aimed at marketing the region’s businesses and helping them establish an online presence.
Foster said the most pressing issue the new board hopes to address is raising local awareness of the businesses in their own backyard.
“That’s one of the things we’ve heard from a number of businesses,” Foster said. “They have people walk in and say, ‘Oh, I didn’t even know you were here.’ It’s all about establishing local roots and awareness.”
Although the new board comes with a lot of fresh ideas, Foster said they still plan on continuing to work with many of the previous board’s initiatives.
“We want to take ideas that have worked in the past, and adapt them for future business and community enhancement,” he said.
Weingarth said an important next step for the region is to develop its local business community as an extension of Calgary.
“It’s called sustainable tourism,” Weingarth said. “How do you work with visitors in the area, how do you invite people in without eroding the community?
“What people come here for is that friendly, small town experience,” Weingarth continued. “So how do you not create traffic jams unwittingly? Those are the kinds of issues (we are dealing with).”
Outside of the Diamond Valley Chamber of Commerce, Weingarth and Foster spearheaded the Diamond Valley Economic Partnership, a local group whose mission it is to support and help develop a thriving business community.
Through both initiatives, Weingarth said the new board hopes to help businesses learn how to collaborate with each other and help each other grow.
“We’re not doing this individually. It’s a collective effort,” he said.
