2018 Salt Spring Chamber Salty Award Winners and Photos

The Salt Spring community came out last night for a beautiful evening to celebrate local businesses, people, places and the many charms of Salt Spring Island. After numerous years of experimenting with the format for honouring local businesses and people, the Salt Spring Chamber really seems to have struck a nice rhythm of creating a recognition approach as fun and special and unique as Salt Spring itself. It was just the right amount of appreciative and fun and a great way to honour many of the organizations, businesses, people and places that make this island so special. The evening was hosted at the newly remodelled Harbour House Hotel and attendees enjoyed a delicious meal, wines and desserts provided by the hotel along with music from local band Sky Valley.

The event was made possible by the generous sponsorship of Windsor Plywood, Island Savings, our favourite local media choice the Driftwood, the Salt Spring Chamber with additional sponsorship from PCS Pest Control, Chambers of Commerce Group Insurance, Moby's Pub, Country Grocer, Mouat's Trading, Thrifty Foods and supported by Alchemy Farm, The Fishbowl Magazine, Celebrity Accents, Harbour House Hotel and Terrier Marketing Inc with the Salt Spring Exchange as media sponsor.

The only questionable moment of the night occured when John Bateman won the award for Funniest Person on Salt Spring. You could hear a pin drop in the room. The crowd was incredulous at how this could have happened. Matt Steffich from Steffich Fine Art, one of the hosts of the evening, sensing turmoil in the crowd, gracefully navigated their angst and was able to therapeutically rescue the evening from the unexpected low. Attendees eventually received the difficult news in stride, as one must sometimes on Salt Spring.

And so many thank yous and wows and thank yous. There are wonderful local media organizations here on the island that very we're proud to support and we know how much of an important part of our community they are. The Exchange is in very good company and we're so very grateful that we were voted your favourite local media choice again this year. This is now the 3rd award the Exchange has received from the Salt Spring Chamber over the years we've been in service to the community. We generously received the Business Ambassadors of the Year back in 2010. Thank you to all of you who use the Exchange every day and to all our advertisers who make this service possible. We're a 100% locally owned and managed media service. When you use the Exchange, you're also shopping locally and supporting local people with your media needs, time and dollars.

The Salt Spring Island Chamber of Commerce, established in 1948, which hosts the event, is a not-for-profit organization representing close to 300 business owners and individuals on the island. They seek to create and maintain a prosperous environment for business and industry, while protecting and enhancing the island’s sustainability and improving its economic viability. Consider joining if you're not already a member.

Awards for the evening were made by local glass artist Mark Lauckner at the Glass Foundry using recycled glass with engraving from Salt Spring CNC.