(File photo/northeastNOW Staff)

By Ben Tompkins

Financially sound

Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce hosts AGM

Apr 11, 2023 | 3:38 PM

The Humboldt and District Chamber of Commerce recently held its Annual General Meeting to discuss financial stability, undertakings in the past year, and its plans for the future.

According to the Chamber itself, 2022 was a year of evolution, as they left the historic campground (which they had been at since 1998), and moved into the historic courthouse.

“We’ve come through nearly 120 years of operation, and every once in a while, a significant part of our business model changes… 2022 was a year of evolution, so 2023 begins the work down new paths,” said executive director, Brent Fitzpatrick.

“Just on first glance, our business has changed dramatically, the courthouse is absolutely magnificent, and the building is almost as old as the Chamber of Commerce, so there’s a lot of history that it connects to our community, and it’s just a lovely place to be with a lot of space, that gives us just amazing flexibility.”

And despite the move, the Chamber has begun the year financially sound, even though it wasn’t a stellar year, compared to immediate previous years.

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This is a large difference from how they were back in 2018 when they were under a bit of financial pressure.

“Our office manager, along with our board of directors and myself have worked really hard at taking advantage of opportunities that came up, just to make sure that we had a really good war chest ready to go, and we accomplished that as we ended 2022,” Fitzpatrick added.

“We’re financially prepared for the next couple of years, while we kind of look through the different streams that we want to take advantage of. Now we’re looking at a model where our board doesn’t have to really worry about money, we know that we can pay our bills and keep the lights on for quite a while, and that allows us to focus on what we’re going to deliver for our members.”

And while the Chamber doesn’t exactly know the complete details of what those next moves will be, they know they have the time to deliver them successfully.

One of the main reasons why that is, is because they aren’t “tied down” by the campground and its mini golf course anymore, for the vast majority of the summer months.

“That’s the most beautiful part of all this, I’m just the biggest fan of not knowing what the future is because now we get to choose,” Fitzpatrick explained.

“Now, we’ve suddenly found ourselves with six months of free time, and this allows us to go in new directions. We’re looking at some pretty strong economic development measures, we’re looking at tourism, it just gives us an opportunity to look at things we simply didn’t have the time for before.”

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