Adam Prudhomme
Beaver Staff
Nominations are now open for the 2018 Business Achievement Awards, which will take place Oct. 18 at the Napanee Lions Hall.
As in previous years the event will be hosted by the Napanee and District Chamber of Commerce (NDCC), Town of Greater Napanee and the Napanee BIA.
Business owners, employees and consumers can now nominate individuals or businesses in eight different categories.
Awards that will be presented in October will be the Customer Service Award, Young Entrepreneur Award, Youth Employee Award, Communities in Bloom Commercial Award, Milestone Award, Workplace Wellness Award, Napanee Business Improvement Area Award, Napanee and District Chamber of Commerce Award and Career Edge Empowering Employees Through Training.
All residents can nominate businesses or individuals for the first six awards listed while only BIA and Chamber members can nominate for the respective awards that bear their name.
The Empowering Employees Through Training Award is selected and presented by Career Edge.
“We’re really encouraging the community to get involved because it not only makes a difference to the business owner, but it gets them involved and really gets them to showcase who has really great customer service, who has really taken the time to beautify their location or their storefront, who has a youth working for them who has really pulled their weight,” said Megan Smith, business manager with the NDCC. “There’s quite a variety.”
New to this year’s list of awards is the Workplace Wellness Award which gives employees a chance to recognize an employer who has taken steps to look after the health and wellbeing of their staff.
“The award is really to recognize those that deliver health and wellness through various means to their employees,” said Smith.
“It’s really any sort of dimension of wellness. That could be in terms of training, in terms of mental wellness, nutritional wellness. Really important aspects in the workplace.”
Smith says the award is an important one as society has really begun to place an importance on mental health and well being.
Each nomination made counts as a vote and those that receive the most nominations will be named as the winners in October.
Nomination forms, as well as a list of each award criteria, are available at www.napaneebusinessawards.com or in person at Ellena’s, Coffee Cravings, 12 Market Square, Napanee Business Centre, Gray’s IDA, Napanee Blooms, Davis and Davis, Career Edge, the Strathcona Paper Centre and TCO Agromart. The deadline to nominate a business is Oct. 3.
Tickets for the event, which will include networking opportunities, finger foods and live music, are on sale now. Early-bird tickets are $25 per person or $200 for 10 people until Sept. 27. After that they go up to full price of $35 per person or $300 for a group of 10.
Event sponsorship opportunities are also available at the diamond, gold and silver levels. Tickets and sponsorship information are available by e-mailing businessmanager@napaneechamber.ca.