ANTIGONISH: Lindsay Ross started 2020 as secretary of the Antigonish Chamber of Commerce. She wraps up this tumultuous year as the board of directors’ president.
During the chamber’s Annual General Meeting in June, which was pushed back from April due to COVID-19, Ross was elected president – taking over the reins from Dan Fougere, who had been president since 2016-17.
“I’m really excited about the opportunity,” Ross told The Reporter. “I’m really excited to bring a different perspective to the role, just through a female lens, and look at it through a different perspective that way.”
The 38-year-old joined the Antigonish chamber board of directors two-years-ago in her previous role as an employer engagement specialist with Nova Scotia Works, and within a few months, became the secretary at their 2019 AGM.
Ross has since changed jobs and is now the recruitment and retention manager with the MacLeod Group.
She said it was a privilege and an honour to serve the local business community, which also acted as a great learning experience – something she looks to develop even further as the chamber’s president.
Ross would like to see all businesses in Antigonish become a member of the chamber, and in return, the chamber become a stronger economic vehicle for the town and county of Antigonish.
“I really want to bring a more collaborative approach to it, so I really want to engage our board members and our membership more,” Ross said. “It’s not my chamber, it’s Antigonish’s chamber and I’m just here to represent them.”
As president of the chamber of commerce, her responsibilities are to hear what her membership have to say, allow for new ideas and diversity, and ensure their membership are being represented and being heard by their advocacy through all levels of government.
As to how the chamber of commerce will move forward as Antigonish enters 2021, she suggested it might take at least two-terms to see some real changes, especially during COVID-19.
“I think moving forward we really need to start focusing on advocacy and showing our local businesses that we’re a voice for them – we want to be more than an events committee,” Ross said. “Our little town has really changed in population, and what that looks like; I’m really hoping to get a new representation of our local businesses.”
She finds that especially in rural communities, small businesses don’t have human resources departments or an individual who can find all the information needed.
“They’re sometimes a one-and-only person, who is doing the hiring, marketing, and also looking after the operations,” Ross said. “So if we can take part of the burden away from employers to give them more information, and advocate for them – that’s what we do.”
Ross, who now calls Fairmont home, spent 10-years in Alberta, after graduating from StFX University “because that’s what you think you’re supposed to do.”
She moved about four-years-ago, after making the decision with her husband, who she met while attending StFX, to raise their family on the East Coast and Antigonish was their obvious choice.
For Ross, she explained the chamber is supposed to be a business resource and a place to help market and give resources to businesses.
More than 180 businesses from the town and county are members of the Antigonish Chamber of Commerce.
In her new capacity, Ross vies to continue to serve the community she fell in love with.
“My goal for my first term would be to engage our board of directors – we have so many talented minds sitting at that table and we want to use their strengths,” she said. “So I would really love to engage our board members and focus on their strengths so we can really provide meaningful representation for all of our members.”