This year, the Prairie Sky Chamber of Commerce (PSCC) celebrated their 5th anniversary of hosting the Warman, Martensville & Region Business Excellence Awards (WMBEXA). Due to COVID-19, the future of this annual event was up in the air for much of the year; however, the PSCC decided that now, more than ever, the local business community needed something to celebrate.
This past March, the PSCC was two days away from announcing the 2020 WMBEXA finalists, when restrictions were put in place within the province due to COVID. Because of this, the announcement was postponed until this past September.
“I think initially, when COVID first hit, everyone was in panic mode and weren’t in the mindset to celebrate. When they made it through that initial phase and knew that it was going to be okay, then we had people reaching out to us asking if we would still be hosting WMBEXA. These businesses have had a rollercoaster of a year and have seen so many challenges and we have seen businesses do incredible things when it comes to adapting to everything that has been thrown at them. They were craving that moment to come together and celebrate everything that they have overcome this year,” Jaimie Malmgren, PSCC Executive Director, said.
From there, the PSCC decided that they would make this event happen, although, it would look somewhat different this year. On October 29, Malmgren, along with Roger Grona, CEO of Firebird Business Consulting, hosted a virtual WMBEXA celebration. Although the judging for WMBEXA took place in February, winners of the seven categories did not know the outcome until the live event on October 29th.
This year’s WMBEXA winners were: Community Involvement – Paws Republic, Customer Service – The Medicine Shoppe Martensville, New Business – Upstage Dance Company, Non-Profit of the Year – Warman Collective Garden, Employer of the Year – Aqua Temp, Micro Business of the Year – Team Iron Elles Personal Training and Business of the Year – Warman Small Animal Hospital.
Despite not being held in-person, the event was a success and Malmgren noted that they have had much positive feedback from those that attended. “We knew that this was something that we didn’t want to have to cancel because the businesses had put so much hard work into their applications, so we decided to adapt and re-envision this event. We reached out to the Chamber network from across Canada and took pieces of other events that we liked to make it our own and it all came together in the end,” Malmgren explained.
A large part of the success that this virtual event had was due to the support from the numerous sponsors that took part. “We were thrown a real curveball this year, but our sponsors were more than willing to adapt their sponsor levels. They never hesitated, never wavered and we would not have had this event without them.”
In previous years, Malmgren stated that the PSCC would normally sell between 350-375 tickets to WMBEXA, and this year, she personally felt that if they were able to sell 100 tickets to the virtual event, that would be a success. That number was quickly surpassed and the PSCC sold just under 300 tickets to this year’s WMBEXA celebration.
One of the things that Malmgren said was missing from holding a virtual event was the ability to see the winners reactions when their name was announced; however, this week, the PSCC will be sharing the acceptance speeches from each of the winners throughout their social media platforms.
To see photos from this year’s virtual WMBEXA celebration, visit the ‘Prairie Sky Chamber of Commerce’ Facebook page.
PHOTOS: Paws Republic and Team Iron Elles Personal Training