Chamber of Commerce / NAFCOC / BMF exclusions

I have been operating as a freelance designer/youth marketer/promoter/events manager since 1997. First in Cape Town and since 2001 in Durban. It was in 2006, after I lost out on a R40 000 website project and a major insurance company demanded that I have a VAT number in order to do work for them that I decided to REALLY formalise my business and join the necessary business organisation. Joining these organisations too was MY decision - out of necessity.. not because some marketing person came to seeme and left a prospectus for my perusal.

Not once have I been targeted to join a Chamber of Commerce or any business organisation, even though one of my biggest Cape Town based clients (the late John Malone) was a former Chamber chairperson.

The one organisation that did try to reach me was the BMF, but only because I was fortunate enough to be a second year BCom student at UWC at the time. What about all the informal business people out there who have never set foot in a campus lecture hall.. let alone register for a degree course??

In Cape Town there are hundreds of informal business people that litter the Station Deck and Greenmarket Square daily.. in Durban the front of the Workshop and the alley that leads to West Street also has hundreds of informal traders.

For some reason or the other no business organisation has ever thought about incorporating these guys into their body of members..

CHING CHING... BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY !!!!