Dancham AGM asked for members’ input

The 2016 edition of the Danish-Thai Chamber of Commerce’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) broke new ground twofold. The AGM changed venue from the traditional premises of the Danish Embassy in Bangkok to nearby Dusit Hotel near Lumpini, but more interestingly also tried out a new “format” where the actual AGM took place as the last thing of the evening’s programme, on Wednesday 27 April 2016.

This year the meeting started with a 90-minute forum discussion about how the members can all make better use of their chamber to address the most pressing and urgent challenges the members are facing.

The Danish-Thai Chamber of Commerce includes 120 corporate members who are mostly specialised service providers, manufacturers or start-ups. Add to this the 20+ individuals members, many who work in Thai companies, who should also not be underestimated in terms of possessing experience and insights, said DTCC President Thomas Nyborg.

The attending members were divided into seven groups that discussed the four different topics, which were:
–         How can we use our chamber to communicate and network better to facilitate business for members, as well as between members?
–         How can we use the chamber to address our biggest challenges in areas of admin and policy advocacy?
–         How can we use the chamber to support causes that are important to our members?
–         What should our chamber do to remain relevant going forward? What works well / not so well at the moment?

Each group was given time to brainstorm and then discuss the challenges and ideas for consideration.

The ‘communications’ group, to mention one, came up with prioritized suggestions such as: To push for B2B member promotions via video etc., promoted in newsletter and on social media; reinstalling the member magazine; introduce a web board that facilitate through the website members’ needs for certain products or partners; initiate an international business network where one representative from each business area and chamber of commerce join smaller groups to share challenges; and  map all services and insights from members and communicate these across the board.

The forum was wrapped up by each group representative reading out their suggestion highlights to the meeting.

At the end of the forum all the ideas were compiled, to form the basis of what the incoming board and chamber office should focus the chamber activities on, also including advocacy efforts.

Having listened to the various suggestions, where there were clearly also inter-linking ideas between different groups, Thomas Nyborg concluded that many ideas also resonated what they had already talked about within the chamber’s board.

The President said that all proposals would be shared with the incoming board for enhancing B2B connectivity. The new board would use their two first meetings to process the suggestions and come up with a proposal, and to also include some Key Performance Indicators for the activities and steps to be implemented.

As a break between the forum and the actual AGM, Danish food and Danish beer was served to the meeting attendants.

The AGM elected a few new members to the board of the Chamber. New members on the board are Michael Andersen, L.V. Technology Public Company Limited., Jesper Riis-Antonsen, PANDORA Production Co., Ltd, Sophie Edelgren,  Danish Loft Design and Torben Nybo Jensen, Scan Global Logistics Co., Ltd.