Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Following years of sitting idle on a shelf, the coveted Napanee and District Chamber of Commerce Golf Trophy is making a comeback-while also raising funds for an important cause.
On Aug. 28 Bath’s Loyalist Country Club will be the site of fundraising golf scramble tournament for the Chamber. At stake is the Chamber Trophy, which was once awarded every year until the early 2000s when the tournament went on hiatus. Funds raised from the tournament will go towards the establishment of the NDCC’s Business Relief Fund.
“We thought we just have to do something that we can get people together, so it’s coming back,” Megan Sands, manager of NDCC said of reviving the tournament.
To register before Aug. 20, visit https://www.napaneechamber.ca/golf-tournament. There are also sponsorship opportunities available for the tournament.
Registration is $500 per team, which includes golf cart rental and a meal. There will also be prizes for a hole-in-one, longest drive (male and female), closest to the pin (male and female), best team score, most honest team score and a team putting contest. Teams can also purchase mulligans, four for $10 (each player can buy up to four). The winning team will also have the honour of having their name inscribed on the trophy.
Along with a fun way to get back to networking in person, the tournament is also the first fundraising for the relief fund, which will begin accepting applications in 2022.
The coveted Chamber Trophy.
“We kind of want to be the United Way for businesses,” explains Sands. “My job previous to the Chamber was with United Way and United Way helps the community and those in need and we thought there’s nothing (for local businesses). There’s organizations and grants from the government, but we already have a community within our membership. We already serve the greater business community. So it was like why don’t we have something specifically for our members?”
Sands says the idea was inspired by COVID-19, but it doesn’t have to be for COVID-19 related relief.
“It’s not just COVID,” she said. “It’s what happens if a store faces, quite randomly, there’s been tornados. What if a store faces a huge flood? Yeah insurance helps, but we also want to be there for other things, if not necessarily monetary. It could be materials, it could be resource supports. We find a lot of members that are restricted being able to do things within their own business, like getting their products out to certain industries and that’s what we’re there, for that advocacy portion. But when it comes to anything above and beyond this kind of falls within that relief fund.”
Sands says future events as well as a small portion of membership fees will go towards establishing the fund. Businesses with NDCC memberships will then have an opportunity to apply for funding in the case of an emergency.