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Forum seeks input for vision of 2010

Sylvie Paillard spaillard@squamishchief.com The Squamish Chamber of Commerce wants to capitalize on the Olympics and it wants the business community's input.

Sylvie Paillard

spaillard@squamishchief.com

The Squamish Chamber of Commerce wants to capitalize on the Olympics and it wants the business community's input.

The Chamber of Commerce, the Community Futures Development Corporation of Howe Sound and community partners are launching a business development project aimed at the grassroots of Squamish. This project is intended to be inclusive and hands on, and it's starting off with a community based forum Tuesday (Jan. 24) at 7 p.m. in Totem Hall.

The project's lead consultant, Dawne Bringeland, brings a wealth of knowledge from her experience as a teacher of management at BCIT and at Royal Roads University's School of Business where she focused on business development and human resource development.

"A keen interest of mine is the small and medium businesses that are caught between two worlds and often the very tools they need are just out of reach," said Bringeland.

"The intent is to identify economic development opportunities for the community, in particular looking at training and development needs for the business community to capitalize on what the Olympics have to offer and beyond the Olympics - a vision of 2020."

During the first forum, organizers will introduce the project to the community as well as present summary findings of a variety of research projects and community based projects from the last few years.

"We will be suggesting next steps, but more importantly we are there to help as facilitators to move the community forward in the direction they design towards capitalizing on opportunities," said Bringeland.

A critical area already identified within the community is business skills training, and forum organizers will introduce an assessment tool that will help to further identify training and development needs. Consultants have also developed four to six critical questions that will be asked in a roundtable format of those attending.

"This is in essence drilling down to the core issues that the business community deems important to move forward on in the project," said Bringeland. All members of the community are invited and those attending are asked to RSVP the Chamber visa email at www. squamishchamber.com.

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