The Moose Jaw & District Chamber of Commerce is excited to be holding their Business Excellence Awards (MJBEX) in-person again. CEO Rob Clark hopes nothing changes to interfere with the Gala.
“Yes, it’s gonna be live,” Clark said. “I can feel the excitement from everybody I talk to.”
The MJBEX Awards Gala will be held live at the Heritage Inn Hotel & Convention Centre at 5:30 p.m. on April 27. With over two months to go until the event, there is still the possibility of restrictions being reintroduced in the province if there are new developments with the COVID virus.
“We’re still sitting on a bit of pins and needles, and feeling a bit cautious. But we’re very, very hopeful that we’ll be able to see each other in-person for this gala, and celebrate these awards together again,” said Clark.
Tickets are not yet on sale, but they will stay consistent with previous years at $75 per person.
MJBEX Award categories
The categories open for nominations from the community are:
- Agriculture and Agri-business Excellence Award
- Business Innovation Award
- Community Involvement Award
- Environmental Steward Award
- Impact Award
- Job Creation Award
- Marketing Award
- New Business Venture Award
- Newcomer Entrepreneur Award
- Pillar of the Community Award
- Service Excellence Award
- Young Entrepreneur Award
- People’s Choice Award
In addition to these categories, there are two awards which are not open for nominations. The first is for Business Leader of the Year. That award is chosen by the Chamber board, which numbers 19, including the mayor and a representative from 15 Wing as well as prominent business leaders from the community.
The awards for the nominated categories are chosen by independent judges from the community, Clark said. “There are five or seven independent judges for each of the other categories. We try to keep it at an odd number. And the judges themselves don’t know who the other judges are, so our goal there is to get it as fair and equal and open as we can.”
The second un-nominated award is for Business of the Year. That award is selected after the nominated categories have been judged, and is given to the business with the highest number of points awarded by judges across every category.
Descriptions for each nomination are available from the MJBEX website at mjcc.awardify.io/. For example, the Business Innovation Award “is designed to recognize innovation success by a business which adapts to market place challenges resulting in a competitive advantage.”
“We usually get about 75 nominations overall,” Clark said. “We narrow it down to about five per category going into awards night.”
Nominations are open until Feb. 28. All submissions are kept confidential and secure. Online judging will take place March 1 to 10.
