The President of the Niverville Chamber of Commerce says their annual general meeting on Thursday was a coming together of town council and the Niverville business community.

Melvin Buhler says over the last year there have been some tensions between local businesses and town council, but they still come together and support one another.

"Over this last year, we worked hard to build a better relationship with the council. We were actually able to be a little bit of a liaison between both council and the business community and it was just nice to see that even if a community was growing the way we are and hurdles come in the way of that a community can come together and rally and that was one of the exciting points of tonight."

Buhler says two new board members were voted onto the chamber board to fill two vacancies. They are Clint Hiebert from Fifth Avenue Estates and Kelsey Kosman from Dollhouse Design.

Buhler says in terms of growth, this past year has been very exciting for the Niverville Chamber of Commerce.

"20 more businesses have joined this year, so we have gone, since I have been on the board, from 85 to over 120 businesses and the new businesses that came to town this year, of course, the Tim Hortons and the Shell, just to see the interest, national and regional companies looking to expand into Niverville is great."

The guest speaker for the evening was cyber security specialist Mathieu Manaigre, the owner of Avenir IT. He notes small and medium size businesses often do not realize what type of threats are out there and how they can affect them.

"I think it is more along the lines of education, we want them to understand what is out there, the type of threats that are out there and what they need to do to protect themselves. It doesn't mean a large investment, I think the largest investment on their end is really the time."