Souris-Glenwood Chamber of Commerce is looking at 2024 with mixed emotions as their President, Loretta Turner, will not be seeking re-election for another four-year term. 

In February Turner will have served her local Chamber for a full 4 years, and in that has led her community very well. 

“I believe that change is good,” she shares.  

With a change of leadership, Turner says this opens the door to new ideas and more opportunities for more people to work together. 

Turner held the position of secretary for the two years prior to accepting the Presidency of the Souris-Glenwood Chamber, but probably the biggest challenge to her role was the pandemic. 

To help the retail, trade and commerce, sectors of her community she looked for ways to help them navigate through all the changes, updates, federal and provincial funding grants, technological advancements and programs and then all the restrictions that seemed to change on a weekly basis. 

“I know there were some businesses in some towns that felt defeated and went dormant. But I actually did the opposite, “explains Turner. “I got more engaged.” 

“I started engaging more with the Manitoba Chamber of Commerce which we had never done before, and there was a lot of funding that was available through Covid and our chamber was able to access a lot of it.” 

Members of the local chamber did a variety of marketing campaigns to promote the ‘shop local' initiative. They subscribed to Zoom to continue the monthly chamber meetings virtually to continue the momentum they had started prior to the pandemic. 

“It would have been very deflating had we not continued on,” she says. “So, instead of that we grew in our membership, and we were actually able to give money back to our members by way of buying gift certificates from their businesses through a grant that we received, and extra promotion, and putting us on the map that we are here!” 

“I think we got 40 new members in 2020-2021, which was really exciting to see, and it inspired us all to keep going!” 

Turner says she enjoyed the challenge to ensure that their members, and their community as a whole, could come through Covid successfully. Her own store, LT’s Corner Store, at the corner of Hwy 2 and First Street South in the heart of Souris remained open during the pandemic, deemed as an essential service. 

“So, I was still in the daily grind, and I had my own challenges with having a grocery store,” she explains, “but I almost fed off of it more because I could see that I was doing this, continuing on, in my business life and keeping going in my personal life.” 

“I really enjoyed how we were shut down at home and that family bonding time, and then it was, well, we can push this organization too, and we can support each other and check in with each other. And that went a long way, asking businesses who were shut down, ‘How are you?’ ‘What do you need?’” 

“What they needed was to know that someone cared.” 

There are some very strong and capable contenders to step into that leadership role as President in February. Turner isn’t going anywhere as she is continuing in the executive role of past president.  “I have the first five months planned already so it will be good!” she adds with a laugh.

Please do listen to Souris-Glenda Chamber of Commerce President, Loretta Turner, below as she shares more on her time as President over the past 4 years.