SUNDRE — More than 70 local and area businesses received nominations in a variety of categories for the upcoming Sundre Business Awards.
“We received 72 nominations,” Monica St.Dennis, a director on the Sundre & District Chamber of Commerce, told the Albertan.
Awards will be presented in 10 categories, including Small Business of the Year.
This year, St.Dennis said the chamber decided to contact all of the nominees to extend an invitation with two tickets to the wine and cheese event.
“The idea behind that was that we could bring as many businesses together to celebrate what everyone has done and gone through and come out on the other side,” she said, referring the past couple of turbulent and uncertain years of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additionally, the goal is not only to celebrate the businesses but also to show them their contributions to the community are valued, she said.
The invite-only awards night takes place at the Sundre Arts Centre today, Oct. 20 starting at 7 p.m., and could be attended by as many as 144 people if everyone who was given a ticket – including sponsors and board members – is able to make it out, she said.
Overall, she said several dozen surveys were filled out and submitted throughout the nomination process, which wrapped up at the end of September.
Although the number of online nomination forms that were submitted remained fairly steady compared with recent years, she added there seemed to be fewer physical paper forms filled out this time.
“A takeaway for the chamber would be that we want to make sure those paper copies are in locations that people are definitely going to see (the forms),” she said.
While the chamber would welcome more public participation in the nomination process to get even more forms filled out, St.Dennis was nevertheless quite pleased by the number of different businesses that were nominated this year.
“What I have definitely noticed an increase in though, is the amount of businesses that were in those nominations,” she said, adding there in the past have often been far fewer nominated businesses going on to scoop up multiple awards in several different categories.
“In the past, there’s been several times where one business has won like two or three awards,” St.Dennis said, adding she loved seeing even more businesses being nominated.
“I felt very good in the heart when I was reading these nominations,” she said. “I think that all of our businesses in Sundre deserve kudos. We should be letting them know how much we value and appreciate them in our community.”
