Guelph Chamber of Commerce Connection

Professional Development Programs @ Guelph Chamber

Breakfast on Leadership Oct 21st

The Guelph Chamber of Commerce will be starting its season of professional development breakfasts this Friday, October 21^st, with Marva Wisdom speaking on the relevance of engagement and diversity/inclusion to the leadership we seek and the leaders that we inspire to be. Please click here to register for this event.

Guelph Chamber breakfasts are $25.00 plus HST, and get you back to work by just after 9:00am. They are a great value for dollar and time investment. Breakfasts focus on professional development and run monthly on the third Friday at the Holiday Inn and Conference Centre.

What do CEO’s want from HR?

On October 27th from 8:00am to 9:30am we are introducing a complimentary management webcast from the Strategic Capability Network in Toronto. SCN is a not for profit organization that involves 400 executives primarily in the GTA but looking to reach out to Guelph. We will accept the first 30 registrations to attend either virtually or as a group at Innovation Guelph. The panel is below, and more details on the SCN site. RSVP to sean@guelphchamber.com to register or for more details. We will be hoping to have future events sponsored to keep them complimentary.

Panel: Glenn Laverty (CEO, Ricoh Canada); Anne Martin (President, United Van Lines Canada); Jamie Moody (President, Tree of Life Canada)

Guelph Connect Conference: The Changing Role of HR Professionals

On November 4^th the University of Guelph be hosting 80 of Ontario’s most engaged students about to graduate into HR positions, coming from 10 universities from across the province. It is a full day conference organized by students studying for a major in Human Resources in the Department of Business at the University of Guelph. The aim is to connect industry professionals, students from multiple universities across Ontario, and faculty. Some gold and silver sponsorships are still available on the website, to attend half day, or to come by for networking at the end of the conference. For more details please contact:

Erin Campbell

Teaching Assistant – MGMT*1000

Director – Guelph Connect Conference

Vice President Internal – HRMSA

Programming Office Staff – UoG Student Housing Services

519-766-5663 ecampb01@uoguelph.ca

Thanksgiving

We certainly have a lot to be thankful for in Guelph.

Employment form August to September in Guelph increased by another 1300 jobs and unemployment dropped by another 300 jobs according to StatsCan. Unemployment dropped from 4.7% to 4.3%, again the lowest in Canada. Better than Regina, better than Calgary.

Guelph businesses rock.

Construction season is ending. The Hanlon is open all the way. Carden Street is looking fantastic. We have a few still on the go, but the City looks great. The fellow next to me at the Hamilton Tiger Cats/Winnipeg Blue Bombers game last night said "Your City looks great with all those new streets".

Winnipeg won the football game.

Elections are finished for awhile.

We all got through September, and the fall is looking great.

 

Guelph Election Results

Congratulations to all candidates for stepping forward and offering your service to the community. Below are the results for Guelph compared to last election. Voter turnout continued to decline in Guelph, and across the province. Hopefully this trend will reverse next time around. We look forward to working with the new provincial parlaiment on business issues facing Guelph.

		2011	2007	Var 11/07
LIB	Liz Sandals	19,734	20,188	-454
PC	Greg Schirk	11,950	12,258	-308
NDP	James Gordon	11,148	6,862	4,286
GRN	Steven Dyck	3,234	9,635	-6,401
Other		544	598	-54
		46,610	49,541	-2,931

Canadian Business Issues

The Guelph Chamber of Commerce recently attended the annual meeting of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, held this year in Newfoundland. Every year the conversation changes, with people from Baffin Island to Vancouver Island to Cape Breton Island all taking part. Surprisingly, there are some themes that are on the mind of all sizes of communities across our great land.

This year, many provinces and territories have been involved with many elections from coast to coast to coast. In Guelph, our Chamber of Commerce held 9 discussion forums in the past year with federal, municipal, and provincial candidates. That’s a lot of discussion. Voting has been a full time occupation for engaged citizens in Guelph and elsewhere. Many election topics were the same across Canada, and related to what type of communities we are helping to build.

Chambers provide non-partisan support or argue against policy rather than arguing politics. The over 300 delegates at this year’s Canadian Chamber AGM discussed and debated 62 federal policy resolutions from the 192,000 businesses we represent for the current sitting of parliament. What was on everyone’s mind this year was the question "How do we become more competitive in the world market?". Canada has a great education system, wonderful healthcare, an outstanding standard of living, and yet we have slipped to 20th in the OECD in GDP output per person. Lots of interpretations can be made by economists, but our discussions came to two conclusions:

1) We need to develop our workforce, including skilled trades and management, and
2) We need to embrace the use of technology with all sizes and types of businesses.

Locally, the Guelph Chamber of Commerce Workplace Development Committee, Industrial Committee, and Technology Committee are all discussing how to implement improvements in our workplace and in our use of technology. The GCC Program Committee is preparing events to present topics to help businesses to be aware of resources in our community to continuously improve. Membership Services ensures the Chamber represents a broad range of business sizes and types. Our Advocacy Committee prepares policy presentations to three levels of government. Over all, the Board of Directors sets the strategy for the Guelph business community.

Success is not an accident. It takes the work of an entire community to build on our strengths and provide support where needed. To join in to this national, provincial, and local effort you can become a member of the Guelph Chamber of Commerce. Please visit www.guelphchamber.com , under “Joining the Chamber” or call our office at 519-822-8081.