Tuesday E-mail - May 4, 2010

What Is The Chamber Doing For You?


Business After Hours at The Ridge at Manitou

Located on Manitouwabing Lake, 20 mins north east of Parry Sound, The Ridge at Manitou offers fantastic golf with amazing beauty and promises a truly memorable golfing experience!

If you wish to golf before the Business After Hours, The Ridge is offering 18 holes for $75, including cart!

Join your host, The Ridge at Manitou at 160 Inn Road, McKellar on Wednesday, May 19 from 5:00 pm-6:00 pm to expand your business network. Beverages and snacks will be provided. Bring your business cards along to participate in a door prize draw and to ensure all of your new contacts know exactly how to reach you!

RSVP to info@parrysoundchamber.ca or call (705) 746-4213 to confirm your attendance for Business After Hours & to book your tee time – we look forward to seeing you there!


Business on the Bay

This year’s annual Business on the Bay Networking Cruise will be held Wednesday, June 16 from 5-6 pm. The Chamber, in partnership with Georgian Bay Country and the Georgian Bay Women’s Network will be hosting this free one hour networking get together onboard the Island Queen.

The event is for area businesses and their front line staff to get to know each other, share ideas and information about the upcoming summer season and to learn more about what others in the area have on the go.

Get to know what’s happening with your fellow businesses and wow customers this summer with your knowledge of the area – don’t miss this great opportunity!


What Has The Chamber Done For You?


Hands On E-Business Event

In follow up to the E-Business Seminar, The Business Centre and the Chamber of Commerce offered a hands on learning opportunity to our members. The afternoon seminar was very informative with attendees learning about effective social media, how to make contact everyday, how to gain a following through the different social media outlets available and a tutorial on building a Facebook fan page for their business.

Special thanks to our sponsoring partners, the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund and the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.


What’s Happening In Our Community?


YMCA Peer Mentoring Program

What is Peer Mentoring? Mentoring is a form of informal professional development where a newer business person develops professional skills or competencies with feedback from a more experienced person.

The mentor is a sort of trusted counselor or guide—someone whose skills the mentee respects. Peer mentoring is a unique approach to mentoring where two people choose to work together on common or complementary goals.

The mentoring pair may have different professional skill sets or work experience – or you may share certain skills or work experiences. The key is that you have something you can learn from each other.

You don’t have to have “seniority” or years of experience to be a good peer mentor. No matter what your current job or work experience is, you have developed a set of professional skills that you can share with your co-workers or colleagues.

What can you expect to get out of Peer Mentoring?
• Expanded knowledge of professional skills and practices
• Exposure of fresh ideas, a faster learning curve than trying to “do it all on your own”
• Personal growth
• Sense of Sharing
• Opportunity to reflect on effective skills and work practices
• Challenge of learning and applying new skills
• Reduced sense of isolation
• Access to broader professional networks
• Increased self-confidence
• Satisfaction gained from growing yourself and helping someone else to grow professionally

If you have two hours per month that you would be willing to donate to the Peer Mentoring Program, please send your contact information to the Parry Sound YMCA Employment Resource Centre at 705-746-8480.


Twitter Workshop

When it comes to micro blogging, are you scared twitless?
Leaving the tweet to everyone else is keeping you out of the loop -- and that means lost opportunities to engage. Twitter is more than a fad. Twitter’s annual growth has reached 1,100% from 2009 to 2010 and too many businesses are still holding back. If your staff is tweeting and your colleagues are a-twitter, you might think you’re covered. But if your voice is missing, the story just might not be complete. Discover how to find new business opportunities, connect with like minded professionals, build a community, and monitor what others are already saying about your brand.

Speakers:
Anne White, Director of Public Relations, Deerhurst Resort
Bill Anderson, Owner/Social Media Expert, Muskoka Outdoors

Register online at www.eventsinmuskoka.com for this event being held in the evening on May 12th at the Shamrock Lodge in Port Carling.


WSIB Training Course

The Parry Sound Family Health Team and the West Parry Sound Health Centre have worked together to organize a WSIB training course to be held in Parry Sound. The workshop has been booked at the classroom at the Hospital for June 8th & 9th, and there is still room for a few more participants. If anyone has been looking for the opportunity to take the course but have been deterred by the need to travel out of the area to do so, please contact Helen Ayers to register at 705-746-9321.


What Are Our Members Doing?


Local Newspaper launches new website and highlights e-mail

Congratulations go out to the Parry Sound North Star for recently launching a new and improved website, cottagecountrynow.ca, serving the entire Parry Sound, Muskoka and Almaguin region. The site is divided into sections for each of the three geographic regions, with top stories and breaking news for the entire area posted on the home page throughout the week.

Towards the end of each week, the North Star will be sending out an email summary of local news highlights. It’s like a free weekly subscription to cottage country news arriving on your Blackberry or personal computer – so you won’t miss a thing!

To subscribe, please visit:
www.cottagecountrynow.ca/article/661773 and sign up to become a registered user.

Check out www.cottagecountrynow.ca, including links to coupons, flyers, great deals for homes and cars, job notices, obituaries, birth announcements and more from across the province! If you have any questions, please contact Janice Heidman, Advertising Sales Manager or Jack Tynan,
Managing Editor at 705-746-2104.