HUMBOLDT — In his report to the Humboldt & District Chamber of Commerce board, executive director Brent Fitzpatrick said that 2021 created some of the strongest engagements with members of the community in recent memory.
During the annual general meeting, Fitzpatrick said one highlight was bringing Indigenous engagement and awareness to the community through the TEN (training and employment network) project.
The TEN project was funded from the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce for $10,000. The work resulted in numerous virtual sessions, including Indigenous awareness training with Lyle Daniels, the Office of the Treaty Commissioner, (OTC) Understanding Treaties with Amy Seesequasis of the OTC, and investment potentials with Sean Willy of Des Nedhe.
“In order to develop partnerships and bridges between Humboldt and First Nations peoples whether they be a specific First Nation in our region or with First Nations people, it’s important you have awareness and understanding of their background and their history,” Fitzpatrick said.
“The board of directors said they will continue that TEN project, despite no funding. That’s just a project they feel and believe in, so it will continue.”
Fitzpatrick said that the 2022-23 year will likely have the business community seeing more awareness training, potentially including blanket exercise awareness training.
“In our community just because we’re uniquely geographically situated we haven’t had exposure to it, so this is just a great opportunity to see things folks have no awareness of.”
Another project was the shop local initiative, which received funding through the Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce for $43,050.
For the initiative, the Humboldt & District Chamber produced more than 30 one minute videos promoting local businesses, which were put on the Chamber’s social media. The Chamber remains the owner of the video equipment bought with the funding, which Fitzpatrick said they intend to continue using in future years.
“The shop local was a huge game changer for us. It’s not often someone comes up to you and says, ‘Would you like to produce a whole bunch of stuff.’ Through the Saskatchewan Chamber we were able to get funding for that, which was absolutely remarkable in its flexibility for us to do what we needed to do.”
Overall for the Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce, cash flows rose from $111,460 in 2020 to $190,702 in 2021.
The Visitor Information Centre and Historical Park campground earned $48,934 in excess revenues over expenses in 2021, an increase from $31,403 in 2020.
Camping was up from $17,117 in 2020 to $37,966 in 2021 as was mini-golf earning $7,213 in 2021, an increase from $3,688 in 2020.
While it’s a rise, Fitzpatrick said the campsite hasn’t come close to pre-pandemic numbers.
“In the last five years that we’ve been trending it we just seen an erosion of campground income, then 2020 hit and it just did a vertical drop,” Fitzpatrick said. “Last year there was a bit of a comeback but most of that comeback were through businesses in the area doing work – they were all long-term. We didn’t have as many moms, dads and kids coming through.”
The Chamber is expecting to see this trend from construction firms continue in the coming year due to developments in the region.
One business utilizing the camp grounds installed a new hi-capacity septic tank between camp sites 12-13, with permission from planning, which will allow the site to be used throughout the summer.
Resigning from the Humboldt & District Chamber of Commerce’s board was Olivia Coffyne from Diamonds of Detroit, Devan Tasa from the Humboldt Journal, Devin Cannon from Bolt FM and Shelley Romanyzsyn-Cross from Carlton Trail College.
New to the board is Elan Buan from Schollie Consulting, Greg Riou from REACT Waste Management, Jennifer Brooks from Carlton Trail College, Mike Yager from Spotlight Sport & Corp. Wear, and Megan Getty from RBC.
Returning to the board are Brent Walker, Anne Thomas, Cori Norman, Tammy Ward, Mike Pulice, Alyssa Hinz and Chris Hergott.
