The Annual General Meeting put on by the Canadian Jewellers Association was held at the prestigious Cambridge Suites Hotel in downtown Toronto and boasted a great turn out this year.
The Annual Business Meeting covered minutes from the previous annual meeting, the CJA audited financial statement, the appointment of auditors for 2013, and a motion to ratify the actions of the outgoing directors.
The meeting wrapped up with a ceremony that awarded the CJA’s Collar of Office to the new Chairman, Geoffrey Beattie, the owner of Barclay’s Fine Custom Jewellers in Victoria, B.C.
“I’m excited for the new role,” says Beattie. “We’ve got a lot of initiatives that we’ve started and it’s taken a while for these to start to come to fruition. One of them is re-branding the Canadian Jewellers Association, which we’ve already done and we’re starting to now market that. We’ve got a new website that has just been launched this month and we will be inviting members to critique the site and give us their input. I think people’s expectations are that we should be a more modern association for the industry, which has had to change to quickly is a short period of time and we have to keep up with that.”
“We’ve invested the money and we feel very strongly that it’s also going to bring about more dialogue and we feel that there’s a lot of room for membership growth,” adds Beattie. “As a result of the website, there are benefits like having the site redirect consumers to retailers and with it, provide the support that they would expect to the association.
Beattie also presented Paul Mara of Paul Mara Jewellers with the CJA 2014 Chairman’s Award that was established in 2000 in order to recognize outstanding members of the Canadian jewellery industry.
The ceremony also included the introduction of the Erol Paylan Memorial Award by CJA President and CEO David Ritter. The award was created in honour of Mr. Paylan who had passed away while serving on the CJA board. Mr. Paylan’s daughter Miriam presented the award to Darwin Copeman, president and CEO of Jewelers Mutual.
Following the award presentation, guests were invited to enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres while networking with other members of the industry. CJ
