The oath of office was administered to Jay Bottomley on Tuesday as the new president of the Battlefords Chamber of Commerce.
First vice-president Warren Williams and second vice-president Terry Caldwell were also sworn in as the Chamber embarks on its 110th anniversary year of being the voice of business in the Battlefords. The officials were elected at the end of 2015 and were introduced at the Chamber’s meeting Jan. 26.
Bottomley takes over from Brendon Boothman, who wraps up a successful and active year of leading the Chamber. Boothman stays on the board as past-president.
Bottomley is the owner/proprietor of Oil Can Charlie’s, a quick-lube business in North Battleford that has been in operation for six years. The business has expanded to include Betty Bubbles, an auto and RV wash nearby, which has been open for the past year.
In speaking to the News-Optimist,Bottomley said he looks forward to a number of new initiatives for the Chamber in 2016.
Bottomley indicated there will be a greater focus on membership and networking.
“We want to push to bring the members together and just get businesses talking.”
To that end, a number of events are planned. One will be called Chamber on Tap, regular events that will allow business people to gather and hear speakers talk about business.
While the Chamber has invited noon-hour luncheon speakers in the past, these will be in a more informal and relaxed setting and run between 5 and 7 p.m.
The plan is for a speaker would talk for about 15 to 20 minutes. The focus will be on business or networking topics, and Bottomley promised more details would be released about these events in the near future.
There are also plans in store for two separate VIP events in which prominent speakers will be hosted. These are designed to celebrate business in the Battlefords and also to celebrate the 110th year of the Chamber in the Battlefords.
The President’s Banquet gave members a small taste of what is to come in that respect. The guest speaker was Cary Bowman of Lucky Bastard Distillers of Saskatoon. His presentation included talk about his business’s legal struggles trying to get their name and products registered and trademarked.
The company’s attempts to register “Lucky Bastard Vodka” as a trademark have been denied repeatedly by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office on the basis of a section of the Trade-marks Act that “prohibits the registration of a trademark that is scandalous, obscene or immoral.”
“I don’t know what you think but I’d rather be a ‘Lucky Bastard’ than a ‘Fat Bastard’ or a ‘Dirty Brown Bastard,’ two other alcohol brands that were approved by the same office. But that might be just me,” said Bowman.
The issue has been in litigation for years and Bowman plans to take the issue to the Supreme Court, but he added “we have gained so much national and international attention and press that I could never even afford to pay for it.”
Other Chamber initiatives happening in 2016 include Member Mondays, where the Chamber promotes one of its member businesses for that day. The Chamber of Commerce golf tournament is also coming back for a third year, with Jackfish Lodge Golf and Conference Centre the venue May 27.
This being an election year, the Chamber also plans to again schedule election forums for the provincial election as well as the fall municipal vote. The Chamber held a federal election forum in North Battleford last September.
With a full schedule of events planned for 2016, at least one existing event has fallen by the wayside.
Bottomley confirmed that the three-year-old Battlefords Best Marketplace and Expo will not be going ahead. The event has been suspended for 2016.
The new president said while the event got “great feedback” from exhibitors and members of the public who attended, the decision was made to put the Chamber’s resources and time to other activities.
“We realized there is competition in the whole trade show business here in the Battlefords,” said Bottomley.
“At the end of the day if it doesn’t make sense business wise, it’s smarter for us to just take those dollars and resources and focus them in another direction.”
When asked if the show could return in future years, Bottomley did not rule out the idea, saying it’s “something we’ll absolutely look at again in the future.”
As for policy initiatives of the Chamber, Bottomley plans to continue discussions with municipal leaders about a new tax structure. There had been talk about changing the tax assessment in North Battleford to an “income” approach that Mayor Ian Hamilton had spoken to Chamber directors about at a meeting last year. But no change has been implemented as of yet.
The new president said he wanted to speak with the City and the Town about “the whole commercial taxation issue that we’re facing right now. I’d like to open up discussions with them and see what we can come up with.”
The ultimate goal, from the Chamber’s perspective, is to simply come up with a better environment for businesses to grow and expand.
“What we want to do is make it more fair,” said Bottomley.
“Right now with the tax system the way it is it discourages new entrepreneurs and new business and new building in this town. And we want to change that. We want to encourage more infrastructure, new buildings, improvements to buildings, we don’t want to penalize companies for doing that.”
Bottomley anticipates a lot of discussions on that issue this year and said he was looking forward to it, calling it “another positive step in the right direction.”
