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Members of the Sarnia Lambton Chamber of Commerce will welcome two speakers at the organization’s Annual General Meeting to take place on Wednesday, February 28, 2018, at the St. Clair Corporate Centre in downtown Sarnia.

Dr. Katherine Albion, the new executive director of the Western Sarnia Lambton Research Park, and James Temple of PwC Canada, have both confirmed their attendance at the AGM.

Albion was recently appointed to succeed the retiring Tom Strifler in the Research Park position.

Temple is considered one of Canada’s leading voices on corporate social innovation, with his role at PwC providing oversight to ways the firm can embed social, environmental and economic integrity into the fabric of its business.

He has presented workshops at venues such as the World Volunteer Forum and the International Corporate Citizenship Conference and has been featured in articles and videos for TED, the Globe and Mail, Forbes, Strategy Magazine, and Canadian Business.

In 2012, Temple was named one of the world’s top Corporate Social Responsibility practitioners by the Centre for Sustainability and Excellence. He was also an inaugural Notable.ca Young Professional of the Year.

We look forward to being inspired and re-energized when it comes to learning about ways members of the business community can use their skills, voices, and relationships to become catalysts for change.

The AGM will take place in the Gateway Room of the St. Clair Corporate Centre, located at 265 Front St N, Sarnia.

The Sarnia Lambton Chamber of Commerce is encouraging members to contact Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne after a Twitter post last week in which she expressed a willingness to “talk to any business owner about the minimum wage.”

The Premier’s invitation came in response to growing concerns by business owners of the unintended consequences related to increases in the minimum wage. There are also concerns about how the expansion of labour and employment standards is negatively affecting businesses.

The Premier has been told over and over about how businesses are under pressure as a result of the pace of change and  happy to hear that the Premier values the voice of businesses on these issue.  We we hope that this listening exercise will turn into real action.

Businesses can contact the Premier by email at premier@ontario.ca or by phone at (416) 325-1941.

The Annual General Meeting of the Sarnia Lambton Chamber of Commerce will take place on Wednesday, February 28, 2018, in the Gateway Room of the St. Clair Corporate Centre.

James Temple, Chief Corporate Responsibility Officer at PwC Canada (formerly Price Waterhouse Cooper), will speak at the event.

Temple is considered one of Canada’s leading voices on corporate social innovation, with his role at PwC providing oversight to ways the firm can embed social, environmental and economic integrity into the fabric of its business.

He has presented workshops at venues such as the World Volunteer Forum and the International Corporate Citizenship Conference and has been featured in articles and videos for TED, the Globe and Mail, Forbes, Strategy Magazine, and Canadian Business.

In 2012, Temple was named one of the world’s top Corporate Social Responsibility practitioners by the Centre for Sustainability and Excellence. He was also an inaugural Notable.ca Young Professional of the Year.

We look forward to being inspired and re-energized when it comes to learning about ways members of the business community can use their skills, voices and relationships to become catalysts for change.

More details on the Chamber’s AGM will be forthcoming as we get closer to the February 28 date.

As the Sarnia Lambton Chamber of Commerce moves forward on an exciting project to create a coffee table book that will showcase our area, the invitation has been extended for a very limited number of companies and organizations to become involved.

The book, working title Sarnia Lambton Simply Sensational, is being produced with the help of Richard Bain, a renowned Canadian landscape photographer, who is already putting together key elements of the project.

Both Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley and Lambton County Warden Bill Weber have offered their enthusiastic support for the project.

The book will have a foreword written by famed astronaut Chris Hadfield, who grew up in Sarnia-Lambton – the first Canadian to command a mission of the International Space Station.

Richard Bain has already published a number of coffee table books in partnership with some of the broader region’s Chambers of Commerce, including Stratford, Niagara, London, Guelph, and Kitchener-Waterloo. Without exception,  chambers have been very complimentary of the positive results generated by those projects in their communities.

No more than 30 sponsors will, on acceptance, receive several books to distribute to their clients, employees, and others. Additional copies will be made available through Ontario bookstores or directly from the Chamber.

If your organization would like to ensure your spot on the list of sponsors, contact Shirley de Silva, president and CEO of the Chamber, directly at (519) 336-2400, ext. 1, or by email: sdesilva@slchamber.ca.

For any organization, looking to the future and reinvesting in not only the current generation of members but those who will grow into leadership roles, in their business life and the community as a whole, are both key initiatives.

The Sarnia Lambton Chamber of Commerce is no different.

Those realities are behind a direction that we’ve now embraced, which is to better integrate our ‘next generation’ group— ‘Young Professionals’—into the mainstream of the Chamber’s activities.

That effort will include an ongoing mentorship and educational growth component, along with a strategy that seeks to provide space—with both professional and business social elements—that will also be consistent throughout the entire Chamber organization.

The strategy behind the change reflects a better understanding of the core mandate that the Chamber has in the business community and how members who are relatively new in their professional roles are able to build relationships and see their career journey develop over time.

We believe these are exciting times in this period when the changes that every generation has experienced create learning experiences for all of us. Our Young Professionals will well positioned to help build a core leadership component for the future and an even more dynamic Sarnia Lambton.

For more information on Young Professionals or how to become involved in its development, please contact info@slchamber.ca or call 519.336.2400.