St. Albert’s corporate elite will get down and get funky this Friday as they recognize some of the city’s top business leaders.
The St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce is hosting its annual Business Excellence Awards of Distinction night this Oct. 25. The event aims to recognize outstanding businesses and business leaders for their contributions to commerce and community.
This year’s awards night will have a 1970s theme to correspond with the chamber’s 70th anniversary, said chamber executive director Shelly Nichol. Some 227 people will be at the sold-out event, which will feature dinner, bell bottoms, disco balls, a live 1970s cover band, and Harvey Wallbanger cocktails.
Nichol said the chamber otherwise has not planned any specific celebrations for its 70th — they’re saving up their party decorations for the 75th in 2029.
Long history
St. Albert’s history with chambers of commerce goes back to at least 1908, where the town had what the council at the time described as a “well-organized” board of trade working to make the region “one of the best and most widely advertised districts in the region,” notes Gazette historian Randy Lievers. When this board formed, and what it did, have been lost to history.
St. Albert’s first official chamber of commerce was established on June 15, 1912, thanks to the efforts of Fleuri Perron (namesake of Perron Street) and four other businessmen, Lievers wrote. While it met with some success and netted the community its first-ever bank (the Banque d’Hochelaga, the building for which now hosts the Art Gallery of St. Albert), this chamber fell apart by 1920, the victim of the fires and the oncoming Great Depression that had battered the business community.
The current chamber got its start on Dec. 8, 1954, its minutes suggest. At a meeting chaired by Dr. W.D. Cuts, then-mayor William Veness spoke on how a board of trade could promote business in the growing community of St. Albert. Dr. N. Onischuk moved to establish such an organization, and became its president one year later. Back then, board membership cost just $2 a year — today, annual memberships start at about $175.
The St. Albert and District Board of Trade was officially registered on May 5, 1956, Lievers reports. By 1962, it had rebranded itself as the St. Albert and District Chamber of Commerce.
The chamber went on to organize and sponsor many marquee events in St. Albert, including the Snowflake Festival, the Rainmaker Rodeo parade, and the St. Albert Farmers’ Market.
The chamber started the market in 1983 as a way to attract new members, said former St. Albert mayor and longtime chamber member Anita Ratchinsky, 89.
“It was not a flea market,” Ratchinsky said, although there were some vendors in the early days that treated it as such.
“It was a market of homegrown and homemade by the farming community or those who chose to work under those rules and regulations.”
The market started off as a two-block affair on Perron Street, with Ratchinsky cheering on the vendors on rainy days with her renditions of “Singin’ in the Rain.” It became a licensed member of the Alberta Farmers’ Market Association in 1984 and moved to St. Anne Street in 1987 for better traffic flow. Today, the market is known as the largest of its kind in western Canada and draws tens of thousands of guests every Saturday from June to October.
The chamber now boasts some 730 members and serves as St. Albert’s voice of business to all levels of government. Nichol encouraged all businessowners to join the chamber and bolster their connection with St. Albert residents.
“The community of St. Albert is very supportive, and they like to know their businesses,” she said.
The awards night runs from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday at the St. Albert Inn. The Gazette will have more on this year’s award recipients next week.