Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce Holds First Prosperity Northwest Event
by Scott A. Sumner
www.thunderbaybusiness.ca
For many in Thunder Bay, the annual Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce trade show at the CLE grounds was a tradition. This year a change was made to reflect the needs of the business community by ending the trade show and holding a brand new event called Prosperity Northwest at the Valhalla Inn.
“In a sense we were trying to go back to the main focus, which is to have business people meet business people, find out what is going on and provide opportunities to have some really good discussions about how to build business. Over the years things have changed, they have evolved and one of the comments we heard was that the traditional businesses that went to the trade show were not there and the show was becoming more consumer oriented. We assembled some creative folks in order to see how we could change the show to bring it back to a focus on business.” said Harold Wilson, President, Thunder Bay Chamber of Commerce - Prosperity Northwest Business building Business.“We are doing multiple things here today. At one point we were going to do the show for two days but business is leaner now and we said let’s do it in one day. We had seminars on some of the hot topics like the HST, Bill 168, how to market and sell and how you get onto tenders or bidding. The displays were up early and we kicked off with a breakfast and a presentation on the Ring of Fire development. We had two seminars at a time. You could go to the seminars or be at the booths. The general public could come in at 4 to 7 pm with an emphasis on attracting business people. We didn’t get the quantity of people through, but did get the quality of people for the businesses. We provided a forum for businesses to have the time to meet with other business people.”
“A very unique part of the new event was WISK Air which provided helicopter rides for the participants at no cost. That was the CLE portion of our trade show. Wisk had a chance to showcase the service they provide to the far north mining companies. These types of
companies are a leading indicator of the economy.” said Wilson.
