The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

3 Business Links, Tuesday, April 20, 2010 Kudos to Halton Hills Town Council ast month the Canadian and US governments reached a productive and forward looking deal on Buy American provisions. We want to take this opportunity to give kudos to Halton Hills Town Council for their role in this. Their proactive efforts in assisting John Hayward of Hayward Gordon Ltd in bringing attention to A Quarterly Official Publication of Halton Hills Chamber of Commerce 328 Guelph Street, Halton Hills, ON L7G 4B5 Tel 905.877.7119 Fax 905.877.5117 Email info@haltonhillschamber.on.ca www.haltonhillschamber.on.ca L this issue and how it affects Canadian businesses grew far beyond what our local council ever anticipated. Halton Hills is the mouse that roared! Never let it be said that one person can't make a difference. Helen In this case it was MacCormack one person going to President his town council, and from there it grew. That was certainly a job well done. (See cover for full story.) Recently the business news has focussed on the Canadian dollar approaching par to the US dollar, and that has always been considered to be bad for exporting. However, the Conference Board of Canada is now saying that a strong loonie and currency volatility, while a net negative for the economy, is not a major impediment if firms take steps to adapt. A strong loonie has several benefits to the economy: lower prices for consumers, keeping inflation in check and lower interest rates which encourage businesses to invest. We'd love to hear from you to tell us how it has, or is, impacting your business. Have you been able to adapt your practices to accommodate the higher dollar, or has it even been an issue for you? Has it been a positive or a negative for your business? I can be emailed at Helen@haltonhillschamber.on.ca The Chamber recently held our annual Business Achievement Awards. Congratulations again to our award recipients: Kay Matthews of the Georgetown BIA as Employee of the Year; Brady Davies of the Cellar Restaurant as Entrepreneur of the Year, Friends of Devereaux House as Green Award recipient; and the Independent and Free Press as Business of the Year. We had a record number of nominees this year. Obviously Halton Hills has many outstanding businesses. These business people exemplify this quote from Robert Collier: "Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out." As always, your Chamber wants to hear from you. If you have questions, comments, or issues you'd like to discuss, we want to hear from you. You can reach me at the above email address, or by phone at 905 873-1877. EDITORIAL COMMITTEE EDITOR: What's News and Features: Cor Baarda, Knowledge Management 905.702.0926 Writers: John Lewis, Mike Francis Insurance Agency, State Farm 905.877.9652 Tracey Wellon Ty Virtual Assistant 416.895.9949 Chamber News: Sue Walker, Halton Hills Chamber of Commerce 905.877.7119 New Members: Wendy Hue, Partners In Progress 905.877.2183 Book Review: Beverley King, Halton Hills Public Libraries 905.873.2681 PRODUCTION & PRINTING The Independent & Free Press Steve Foreman, General Manager Dolores Black, Production BusinessLink is the official publication of Halton Hills Chamber of Commerce. Unsolicited material is not eligible for payment. Opinions expressed are those of the author, not necessarily those of the Chamber, its Board of Directors or its membership. It is distributed free to all Chamber members and through The Independent & Free Press. The Independent & Free Press, Halton Hills ­ There for You! By Cor Baarda, Knowledge Management Enterprises S uccessful businesses all have one thing in common ­ people with a passion for their product and for satisfying their customer! The Dills family, previous owners of The Independent & Free Press, have it, and the 24 full-time employees who work there now still have it, whether it's Steve, Ted Brown or any one of the others. They're part of this community and it really matters to each of them! That's why you win Business of the Year, even though many of us have difficulty thinking of our newspaper as a business. The Independent & Free Press is our newspaper - but it's also a business with owners and thus has a clear need to make a profit. Let me put it into context: · The Independent & Free Press is part of Metroland, Ontario's largest and most successful Community newspaper publisher and is owned by the Torstar Corporation. · The Independent & Free Press also publishes a large number of specialty products that have a local focus as well, one of them being the Halton Hills Chamber of Commerce BusinessLink that you are reading right now. · It is delivered free of charge to 22,800 homes! · Advertisers use 70% of the available print space, and this makes the whole thing possible ­ the advertisers get their information to their customers, while the newspaper has space available to inform the readers about local sports, politics, interesting things that have happened in the community, passionate opinions from readers, editorial staff, politicians, and others. The passion of the management and staff in serving their community is clearly evident in the recent change in delivery days to Tuesday and Thursday. The satisfaction of the readership is a defining goal ­ and the Independent & Free Press' advertising has to be timely to be useful to both readers and advertisers. The Independent & Free Press is there for us! Independent & Free Press Staff