The Strathmore Wheatland Chamber of Commerce (SWCC) won the top chamber of the year award for 100-300 members!

Executive Director of the SWCC Scott Silva said he and his team are honored to be recognized, although at the time they didn't even know they won because they were busy working at their tradeshow.

"We graciously accepted this while we were working, so this award was actually presented and we weren't able to receive it because we had our first regional tradeshow. I think what it really represents is all the hard work of all the individuals over the last several years of the chamber, because this is not just an award that is bestowed upon everyone that is active now, this does go back at least two years," he said.

"We didn't even know we won it until days later."

It was fitting that the SWCC received the award while they were busy in the community, because Silva believes community engagement and hard work played a big role in their success. Silva said engagement with their members helped them work on some things that may have needed improving

"We've been able to understand where there may have been some faults or inconsistencies in the past, and look to correct them through not only further engagement with our members, but to be able to grow our membership."

Effort was a key part of why the SWCC won the award. With only around 120 members, the SWCC just barely met the requirements for the 100-300 member category. 

"One of the things that probably distinguished us in this category is that we were never in this category until last year. We were always below 100 members. So the fact that we just entered this category and just cresting 100 at about 120 members and able to win this, I think was a big honor to the team's effort over the last couple of years."

While continuing to grow the team is a big goal, Silva said it's important to have controlled growth so that the team can still work well.

"We'd love to be able to get to 150 members this year. Part of our goals within that growth is to be able to have our processes and scalability understood and defined. As any business grows you're going to have those growing pains. So what we've been trying to do is not grow too fast, but still grow at a level that we can manage, but also doesn't affect our current members."

For Silva, this is just the beginning for what he and the team hope to accomplish. Winning the award is certainly nice, but Silva hopes to create long-term success so that the SWCC will always be operating at a high level.

"We really want to be able to create a system or process for legacy. Because as this current board of directors ages on, and there's new directors always coming in, we want to make sure we set a good path for success."

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