The Lacombe and District Chamber of Commerce will be hosting City of Lacombe Mayor Grant Creasey for a presentation at their Annual General Meeting (AGM) which will be held on Thursday, January 6, 2022.  

“I don't exactly know what the outcome of the presentation will be but Mayor Creasey is going to be doing a presentation on why companies should come to Lacombe, why people should come to Lacombe, why people should choose to shop here, why people should choose to be here, and what makes Lacombe so special compared to other places around,” said Jeffrey Hangar, Executive Director of the Lacombe and District Chamber of Commerce. 

The Annual General Meeting his usually held every year and all Chamber Members and those working with non-profits are encouraged to attend but anyone is welcome. This year’s AGM will be capped at 60 people. It will run from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM at the Lacombe Memorial Centre’s County Room. 

“Basically, you'll get to learn about what we do. You'll get to learn about what we plan to do in the following year, and you'll get to learn about our finances and select new board members and basically just start the process of being part of the Chamber. The Chamber only exists and it's only strong with the Members that make it up. The AGM is a good chance for all those Members to meet and to discuss the way forward,” explained Hangar. 

Jeffrey Hangar has been the Chamber of Commerce’s new Executive Director for over a month and so far, he says he has felt very welcomed by the community. He says during his first year of being in this new role he will be collecting ideas and information from Chamber Members. 

“During the first year we're just going to build on those ideas so that during my second year, we can really build in some of these new directions. One of the biggest issues that I'm hearing a lot is about employment, training, and skill development. I need to just look a little bit deeper into what that means and what, if anything, the Chamber can do to help,” said Hangar. 

Over the course of the holidays, the Chamber’s Passport to Christmas logged over 3 million dollar’s  worth of purchases with over 11,000 passports being submitted at 75 local participating businesses. 

Jeff Hanger, Executive Director, Helen Peck, Sales & Promotions from the Lacombe Chamber of Commerce join Sunny 94's Adam Hamilton for the 2021 Passport To Christmas draw.

“The more times we get out and meet people and speak to people and talk to your local businesses about what you want and what you need and what you'd like, then the better we're all going to be,” added Hangar about the program. 

The Chamber is still working on their online presence at the ChamberMarket.ca which offers local goods through an online shopping experience. However, Hangar admitted that businesses in Lacombe have not been making a lot of use of the service as other businesses have been in other parts of the province. 

“We don't have many lined up right now in Lacombe, and that's something that I should be working on this year to get more people lined up. It's actually free right now. We've actually got a grant in which we can get companies to have purchasing options online through the Chamber market and we can do it for free until the end of February,” said Hangar. 

He added that the service would be useful for a businesses that may not have a huge web presence. 

Besides that, in 2022, Hangar looks forward to hosting the Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Trade Show at the Gary Moe Auto Group Sports Plex, at the end of April as well as providing additional training as apart of the Embrace Lacombe program.