Chamber News February 2007

·         Preparations are now well under way for the AGM taking place on Thursday March 29^th at The Duke of Richmond Hotel.    Nomination forms for Council elections have been distributed by email or post.  Being a member of Chamber Council is a very worthwhile opportunity to represent your business sector and we earnestly ask for your participation as we represent business views on a wide range of issues. Meanwhile nomination forms and further information can be obtained from the Chamber office on 727483

·         An AGM Dinner will be held at The Duke of Richmond Hotel immediately after the AGM.    This will be a great opportunity to network with business colleagues and listen to a local speaker on a key Island topic.   The culmination of the evening is the     presentation of the Bill Green Award to a local company.   Tickets at £25 per head are now available from the Chamber office.

• The next Lunch Club is on Tuesday 20th February and Mark Colton and John Martin from BWCI will provide an Island’s Pension Update for members.  As usual the lunch club provides an excellent chance for networking with business colleagues.   At £10 for a three course meal and a glass of wine the lunch is excellent value.     We welcome new and occasional members who should contact Chamber office to make arrangements beforehand.

• The Chamber office is open from Monday to Friday 9am to 4pm and a meeting room with facilities is available for use of members at a small charge.  Telephone 727483 or email office@chamber.guernsey.net  to make enquiries.

• The Chamber website is www.chamber.guernsey.net and contains contact details for all member businesses.      At the present time the website is being updated and will have a modern look and feel very shortly.

·         The office is now preparing for the 2007 Annual Business Directory due to be published in June.     Members have been circulated with the current information we hold on their business and this is your chance to update any changes in your business details.  The 2006 Annual Business Directory is now available free of charge to members who require additional copies.

• Chamber provides a range of approved business certification services for its members.    Call the office and ask Jan Vaudin to describe the full range of international services we can provide.

• Chamber sends a single copy of Business Contact to each member monthly.   If your company needs additional copies then contact the office to make arrangements.

• The annual Business Trend Survey organised by The Young Business Group closes on February 16^th.     The results of the survey which provide a vital independent monitor of Island business affairs will be circulated in a forthcoming issue of Contact.

• Chamber’s Retail Group has been making representations to the Environment Department along with other groups to make sure that access is maintained for deliveries in town.    We all want St Peter Port to be successful now that the Markets are open again but access continues to be a key issue for all town traders and the general public.

• Chamber was invited recently by John Silvester from the States Property Department to view the newly refurbished upper  Market Hall which will shortly be available for hire to parties of up to 100 with full facilities at very modest expense.    Chamber would recommend this central venue to any company needing to provide corporate hospitality or exhibit its products in the centre of St Peter Port.

• Chamber’s small networked three computer system is a vital part of our busy office where we handle information from more than 600 members.   We back up our system daily using a CD on a simple archive system and can recover data up to three years old.   It is easy to run up a single channel system on a home PC to keep Chamber running if ever the need arose.     More recently we are having the system checked monthly by our computer support company.    With the use of more and more electronic messaging we feel it is vitally important to check proper operation of firewalls, virus checking, confidentiality messages, shared contacts, Microsoft updates, memory usage, anti-spam and mail and network logs.       Paperless office next !!