Chamber business awards revamped for 30th edition
Award categories updated to better reflect times, Kelowna’s changing business community
Social enterprise is out and social impact is in. Micro business of the year and the technology and innovation award are out, but excellence in agriculture is in.
No more hospitality and tourism award, but hello to arts and entertainment achievement.
And welcome to marketing campaign of the year and so long to marketer of the year.
It’s all part of the refresh of the Kelowna Business Excellence Awards for its 30th annual edition this fall.
The Kelowna Chamber of Commerce, which has been organizing the business awards since 1988, decided to use the milestone anniversary to revamp the contest to better reflect the times and the city’s ever-changing, diverse and vibrant business community.
“We’ll always have our six standard or core awards like small, mid-sized and large business of the year, rising star, young entrepreneur and business leader of the year,” said chamber president Tom Dyas of TD Benefits.
“But with the 30th anniversary and a total of over 200 awards given out since inception, we thought it was time to refine the format and keep it to 10 categories, which seems to be the magic number.”
While the four new categories will be around for the 2017, there’s no guarantee they will be for 2018.
The lineup could be tweaked next year and every year to stay relevant.
“Kelowna is the No. 1 most entrepreneurial city in Canada,” said Martine Hickman of the Business Development Bank of Canada, which has sponsored the awards for the three decades of its existence.
“We wanted an exciting and different awards program to reflect that.”
Farris Law has been sponsoring the awards for five years.
“There are so many amazing businesses in town,” said Tom McPherson of Farris.
“The awards are set up so that you might not hear of some of them until they are nominated.”
The chamber held a news conference Tuesday to announce the changes at the Business Development Bank’s new offices in the just-opened Okanagan Centre for Innovation downtown at the corner of Doyle Avenue and Ellis Street.
The conference also launched the call for nominations for the 2017 awards.
You can nominate deserving businesses and individuals in the 10 categories at KelownaChamber.org until 4 p.m. June 8.
Judges will review submissions, visit companies and come up with a list of finalists in early September.
Winners will be announced at the awards banquet Oct. 12.