November 10, 2007
The early part of January 2005 saw the final stages of a cooperation forming between four Chambers of Commerce in Northumberland County, with help and funding from the Northumberland Community Futures Development Corporation through the Eastern Ontario Development Fund.
In the short time that these Chambers of Commerce have been in cooperation, the results have been clearly beneficial. This cooperative partnership has set to work putting on business development workshops for Northumberland County small businesses free of charge. They have tried to key in on specific business sectors that are in the most need of further development, specifically industry, agribusiness and home based businesses.
“This is extremely beneficial for all small businesses in Northumberland County,” said Susan Latta, Business Manager of Northumberland Community Futures Development Corporation and nominator for the Community Economic Development Project Award at the OACFDC 13th Annual Community Futures Awards.
This effort affects 1000 small businesses across the district, working to ensure that small businesses succeed. This new cooperation has already attracted accolades and high praise accepting the 2005 Ontario Chamber of Commerce Chair’s Award for this exceptional accomplishment.
This partnership positively affects all of the small businesses involved through seminars and events, teaching these businesses the valuable information that is needed for such things as increasing efficiency through lean manufacturing, as well as increasing efficiency of operations along with the potential for growth of small businesses across the county.
Different seminars that have been presented since this partnership started. The first seminar was entitled “Hands on Introduction and Implementation of 5-S”. This was an industry based workshop, and was a great success, with 50 participants coming from manufacturers across Northumberland County with a goal of overcoming the problems that arise in the face of creating sustainable economic growth.
Event number two focused on the agricultural sector and was entitled “Marketing of Cash Crops”. This workshop used the expertise of Larry Martin of the George Morris Center and was sponsored by the Canadian Farm Business Management Council to help with the cost of the speaker. Many of the producers walked away from the workshop with positive ideas and returned a lot of feedback on ideas for other opportunities to support the local agricultural industry.
The third event focused on “Home Based Businesses” and took place in early April. Since there is no association for this sector, the Chambers Northumberland hired Elisabeth LaFontaine, an “Open Space Technologist” to facilitate a county wide information gathering session and business card exchange for these smaller businesses to help them with networking.
Plans are in the works for another year of creating a strong business environment for all of these small companies to flourish. “A new initiative is being planned for March to put small businesses in touch with financing companies among other things,” said Susan, commenting on the future of this partnership. This Funders Fair for Small Businesses, as it is being called, will help to put these business owners in touch with financing solutions for small business from a central location and, once again help to ensure the economic health and viability of small businesses in Northumberland County.