The Aboriginal Chamber of Commerce (ACC) travelled to Thompson on Oct. 22 for the Thompson Chamber of Commerce (TCC) meeting. During the meeting a memorandum of understanding (MOU) was signed between the two chambers.
An MOU is a formal agreement between two or more parties. Companies and organizations use these agreements for establishing official partnerships together. Although an MOU is not legally binding, one does carry a degree of seriousness and mutual respect.
Oswald Sawh, president of the TCC, says this MOU is a step in the right direction. “One of the main things we try to encourage are new memberships. The more memberships we have, the louder the voice we can have at the table. This memorandum of understanding will encourage aboriginal business owners to join the chamber movement. We know there are a lot of aboriginal business owners out there, but we don’t see the numbers as members. We are hoping this MOU with the aboriginal chamber will increase memberships.”
Gloria Spence, general manager for the ACC, agrees that memberships need to be on the rise. “We want to expand our memberships. Since I started (in April), memberships are primarily in southern Manitoba. Since we are national I want to go beyond that, and I figured a good place to start that would be the north. It’s going to be a strong relationship between southern and northern Manitoba, as well as aboriginal and non-aboriginal business owners.”
Currently Thompson has 162 members within the chamber, with only eight being aboriginal-owned businesses. The ACC has 240 members.
Spence says the ACC has a three-year plan for widening their chamber. In year one the chamber will expand to the north. This will include adding northern businesses to their chamber, and working with northern chambers like the TCC. Year two will see national businesses being recruited for the ACC, and the hope for year three is the completion of sub-offices for the ACC across Canada.
The MOU has been in the works since Spence started with the ACC. She says this agreement is going to help their end goal. “I’m very excited about this. This is great. I am looking forward to coming to Thompson more, and getting into the north. This is a big step for our end goal to go national.”
Sawh says one of the great things about this MOU is the push for young aboriginal business owners to get involved with the TCC and the ACC. He says the TCC will need to set some short-term goals. “Now that this is signed, we want to spell out what specific steps we want to do for a short-term plan. We need to look at what our priorities are. We want to put together a report mechanism, so we can report back to our membership as to how we are doing with the MOU.”
