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Latest News
TELUS investing $3 million in Vernon in 2012
Written by Kim Bourke Published in Press Releases
Planet Bee Winner of Two Medals in Boulder, Colorado
Written by Kim Bourke Published in Press ReleasesFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Planet Bee Honey Farm
5011 Bella Vista Road, Vernon, BC
Honeymoon Mead – Winner of Two Medals at MCI 2012
VERNON, BC – March 6, 2012 - Ed & Taosha Nowek from The Meadery at Planet Bee returned from Boulder Colorado this past weekend with two new medals earned for their entries in the 2012 Mazer Cup International Mead competitions on March 2 and 3 2012. These annual MCI awards set the standard for Mead quality and judging in North America.
Planet Bee’s Honeymoon Mead entry for the 2009 Blueberry Bliss received a Silver Medal in the Varietal category and the 2010 Oak and Honey Rapture claimed a bronze medal for 3rd. place in the Specialty - Open category.
“We were very impressed with the integrity of the competition and the quality and variety of the 197 commercial entries that represent 47 commercial meaderies from the USA, Canada and 8 other countries,” Nowek stated of the Mazer Cup. (“It was an excellent opportunity to learn from some of the world’s finest Mead Masters and to exchange notes and information about the resurgence of this ancient “Beverage of Love.”)
Planet Bee is an operating honey farm and interpretive centre that opened in Armstrong in 1997 and relocated to Vernon in 2003. Open year round, Planet Bee offers many educational programs for local schools and a summer schedule of various daily presentations specifically tailored to entertain and inform children, adults, families or tour groups. The country store and gift shop is laden with the many healthy treasures of the hive and bee themed gifts and souvenirs.
Background Information
The manufacturing of Mead or Honey Wine can be traced back at least 9,000 years and is the practice of using honey in place of grapes or fruits and adding friendly yeast cultures to stimulate the fermentation process. An endless variety of meads can be further refined by using honey from numerous unique floral sources such as blueberry, blackberry, cranberry and raspberry blossom honey, by adding fruit concentrates to produce a melomel, herbs and spices to get a metheglin and then can finished to a dry, semi-sweet or sweet traditional style or even a sparkling wine.
The Meadery at Planet Bee currently has 7 releases of Honeymoon Mead with names such as Okanagan Delight, Apricot Elixir, Colossal Cranberry, Marnier Metheglin and the Parad Ice Berry Mead. Mead is known to reach its optimal maturity in as short as 3 months after bottling and can be cellared for 3 or more years.
Planet Bee received their Land Based Winery license approval on July 22, 2010 and began their first batch of HONEYMOON MEAD in August. Revised regulations allow for beekeepers with a minimum of 50 colonies of honeybees to apply for a manufacturer’s licence and require equipment and facilities adequate for a minimum annual production of 4,500 litres while using all “Product of British Columbia,” honey
Further information is available on the Planet Bee website at www.planetbee.com
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FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
Ed Nowek, President
Planet Bee Honey Farm and Meadery
(250) 542-8088
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
5011 Bella Vista Rd., Vernon, BC
Business Excellence Awards 2012 Registration Form
Written by Kim Bourke Published in Latest News
4 Tips to Grow Your Business
Written by George Published in Blog PostsHere are four great tips to make the best use of your chamber membership to help grow your business. These are free to all members.
1. Get to know us. We love to meet our members and if we can get to know you better, we can help you when inquires come to our office. This is a really a great tip for members who have been in the chamber a long time because chances are the staff has changed since you joined. If we've never met you, we do our best to try and help steer inquiries, but the personal touch makes such a difference. And, this tip is good for all kinds of businesses because as the hub for business information in the community, we get inquiries all the time from anything from consumers to potential investors.
2. Claim your website listing and give it some details. People use the internet to research. When they find our site, they are researching business. The most common page visited after the home page is the business directory. We get nearly 1000 visitors per week, mostly on week-days to our site so it makes sense to spend a little time to make your listing as appealing as possible. Many directories charge for a detailed listing, we do not. But you must take the steps to log in and create your own mini-webpage. You can add a logo, or image and you can create inviting and appealing text and you can link to your main website or Facebook page. You should also link this page back from your website to help increase your search engine rankings. And the more often you make changes, the more the search engines will reward you since your information is likely to be relevant. (If you want to take this one step further, you may want to look at becoming a featured listing, sponsoring part of the directory, or linking or embedding a Youtube Video right in your listing, but we do charge a little extra for this.)
3. Use the power of the chamber network. If your market is local and you want to improve your market share, you can use the web based directory to help you find your best target audience. You may also drop by the office and we'll help you create a custom prospect list from our internal database. If you are wanting to expand your market outside Vernon, we can help you by sourcing leads from our chamber of commerce partners across Canada and internationally through the World Chamber Network.
4. Use the Chamber Facebook page to make announcements and incorporate social media into your strategy. Its easy, and free and great way to develop online relationships.
We are happy to have you come in and brainstorm ideas with as well. Call us and we can get together to come up with some good ideas to help you grow your business.
Digital Dean Photography Announcement
Written by james Published in Press ReleasesTimes are changing and we've been busy. Busy watching & listening to the needs of our clients that is. We already know that great photographs are key for your business image. When you came to us in the past we started by talking about what you were trying to accomplish with professional images, how you'd use them, how you needed them formated, and then we delivered them with a smile and a guarantee. Thanks, loved dealing with you, and we pray you do something nice with them :(
So off you went to deal with someone else to complete your project. Do you even know someone. What if you don't? If you do, can the next person/company carry on where we left off. Are they knowledgable and experienced? Do they communicate the way you need them to? Will they sit down and work with you? Will they do the job in a timely manner? You're busy, do you even have the time to deal with it now? These are just some of the concerns that we heard. No problem now.
As of Nov. 2011, Digital Dean Photography has expanded to be a full service visual solutions company. We now offer logos, websites, copywriting, print jobs, advertising & promotions, technology solutions, and of course our accredited and award winning photography. We'll guide you from the initial consultation to your final business plan destination, keeping you on track while you're doing what you do best; making money with your business. And we'll show you how it'll pay for itself rather than just costing you money. Partnered with an experienced local established graphic design company and equally accomplished website company, we offer an almost embarrassing 60+ years of experience. What's in it for you?
- Peace of mind
- Freedom to do what you really want
- You'll look great
- You'll save money
- It'll be fun
- You'll learn (if you like that sort of thing?)
- You'll feel supported
Contact us anytime for more information.
Cheers and have a great 2012.
Dean Cebuliak, CPA, EET, Bus Admin
250.503.7891
Free Microsoft Office Seminars Feb 21, 2012
Written by George Published in Press Releases
Free Microsoft Office Seminars with the PowerConcepts and the Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce
• Learn about Microsoft Office 2010
• Explore Time saving Shortcuts
• Increase your efficiency!
• Delivered by a Microsoft Master Instructor
To register: www.powerconcepts.ca/Access/CorporateLogin.php?CorpLg=vernon
PowerConcepts provides relevant and innovative training in Microsoft Office in a style that develops confident, independent and empowered computer users. These seminars will provide many time saving tips and ideas that will benefit all users of the program.
Secrets of Microsoft ExcelFebruary 21st, 9am-10am
This seminar will unleash some tools in this powerful application. Starting with tips on creating and layout a workbook and then moving to navigation and formula creation. Learn tips on making dynamic charts that show information clearly and relevantly. Gain powerful tools on how to mine data from an Excel database and get information summarized and clearly presented out of your data.
Secrets of Microsoft PowerPoint
February 21st10:30am-11:30am
Learn tips to avoid the “Death by PowerPoint” scenario. Learn tips to create an interactive presentation or even a self-directed presentation with multiple paths. Using variations on the same presentation for different audiences? Learn how to create a variety of custom presentations all in the same one presentation. Learn some creative tips on setting up animation for charts and other objects in your slide that will help to more clearly make your point. Learn how to avoid huge files and how to compress your presentation to a manageable size.
Business Live Point Seminar
February 21 12:00-1pm
Learn about this SharePoint product that makes it easier to share information with others, manage documents and publish reports.
Secrets of Microsoft Outlook
February 21st1 :30pm-2:30pm
Make handling email, organizing your calendar, managing your tasks and keeping contacts organized a benefit and not a burden. Microsoft Outlook has many powerful tools and tips to manage and organize your work, time and communication. The seminar will provide many tips on how to keep you from becoming a slave to your email but to get Outlook to work for you. Learn how to create projects and delegate work. Also learn how to collaborate with shared and public folders.
Secrets of Microsoft Word
February 21st 3pm to 4 pm
Everyone uses this program but few use this program well or to its potential. The seminar will give many tips that will greatly improve the quality of the documents that are being created and also enable you to do it faster and better. Learn time saving tips on creating your own Quick Parts and apply them. Under how to create, modify and apply styles. Get a better grasp of some to the potential of working with images and SmartArt. Learn how to customize the Ribbon and keyboard shortcuts that apply to everything in 2010.
Location: Greater Vernon Chamber of Commerce
102 2901 32 St Vernon
To register:
https://www.powerconcepts.ca/Access/CorporateLogin.php?CorpLg=vernon
Annual Business Excellence Awards Top Three Finalists
Written by Kim Bourke Published in Press Releases
Meeting and Seminar Room Rental
Written by George Published in Press Releases
Grow Your Business-The Power of Your Chamber Network
Written by George Published in Blog PostsIf you are a new business in town and you want to connect with other business people, where do you go? If you are looking for companies in new markets to sell your products to, what organization has the best directory for contacts? If a company from Chicago, or Mumbai, needs to source out products, or wants to invest in your region, what organization do they consult?
Basic chamber of commerce membership seems like a no-brainer for making business contacts but there are many other opportunities and benefits as well.
Did you know that in B.C. some 30,0000 businesses are represented by their local chambers of commerce? As a chamber member you are also connected nationally at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce to some 190,000 business. Through the International Chamber of Commerce, you are linked to the entire world of business (our members are all linked to this site through our memebrship directory). All this for the small cost of a basic annual membership fee. But Chambers are not just some massive association with a head office somewhere else and their own agenda to push.
Each local chamber is an independent, democratically elected organization that reports to it's members at least once yearly at the Annual General Meeting. This alone makes us quite different than many other business associations: the chamber, really is You. Your chamber here in Vernon started out in 1897 as the Vernon Board of Trade and to help keep the momentum going we are hosting some very special deals and events for Chamber of Commerce week.
Chamber of Commerce Week - Free Computer Workshops, Advertising Discounts
Written by George Published in Press Releases
Promote your business, make yourself known.
We are planning a special insert in the Feb 19 Morning Star to help promote business in Greater Vernon and also start the celebration for the 2012 Business Excellence Award Nominees. You are invited to take part in this with bulk advertising buy. We are looking for 24 or more businesses to participate. If you are interested, please contact :
Lynne Hoever at the Morning Star Advertising Sales office at 250 550 7932 or email to
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
As a follow up, the Morning Star will be contacting member directly as well.
Thank you for showing support for your local community business organization.
Feb 21 - PowerConcepts Computer Training is offering Secrets of Microsoft to members for free as part of Chamber of Commerce Week. They will also be helping to new product launch with a fantastic new collaborative software called BusinessPointLive. Call PowerConcepts to Book your Seat. 250-275-4972 in Kelowna
Secrets of Microsoft Office Seminars
A series of one-hour presentation to give ideas and insight into the potential in Microsoft Office 2010 delivered by a Microsoft Master Instructor
Microsoft Excel 2010
This seminar will unleash some tools in this powerful application. Starting with tips on creating and layout a workbook and then moving to navigation and formula creation. Learn tips on making dynamic charts that show information clearly and relevantly. Gain powerful tools on how to mine data from an Excel database and get information summarized and clearly presented out of your data.
Microsoft Word 2010
Everyone uses this program but few use this program well or to its potential. The seminar will give many tips that will greatly improve the quality of the documents that are being created and also enable you to do it faster and better. Learn time saving tips on creating your own Quick Parts and apply them. Under how to create, modify and apply styles. Get a better grasp of some to the potential of working with images and SmartArt. Learn how to customize the Ribbon and keyboard shortcuts that apply to everything in 2010.
Microsoft Outlook 2010
Make handling email, organizing your calendar, managing your tasks and keeping contacts organized a benefit and not a burden. Microsoft Outlook has many powerful tools and tips to manage and organize your work, time and communication. The seminar will provide many tips on how to keep you from becoming a slave to your email but to get Outlook to work for you. Learn how to create projects and delegate work. Also learn how to collaborate with shared and public folders.
Microsoft Powerpoint 2010
Learn tips to avoid the “Death by PowerPoint” scenario. Learn tips to create an interactive presentation or even a self-directed presentation with multiple paths. Using variations on the same presentation for different audiences? Learn how to create a variety of custom presentations all in the same one presentation. Learn some creative tips on setting up animation for charts and other objects in your slide that will help to more clearly make your point. Learn how to avoid huge files and how to compress your presentation to a manageable size.
About PowerConcepts
PowerConcepts provides relevant and innovative training in Microsoft Office in a style that develops confident, independent and empowered computer users. These seminars will provide many time saving tips and ideas that will benefit all users of the program.
Frank Byl and Barrie Morse are both Microsoft Master Instructors. They bring over 40 years of experience with teaching and computers to deliver a dynamic and entertaining training session.
