CHAMBER LIFE
chamber life As lockdown unwinds across the UK and Ireland, the Chamber has been keeping up its busy schedule of events, webinars, workshops, political engagements, and even looking forward to the return of inperson events in the autumn. Since our last edition of CONNECTED, it’s been a tumultuous few months for local politics, with new party leaders, ministers, late-night deals, and increased talk of a snap election. However, it’s been an optimistic period for the North West as more companies invested in the region, new jobs have been created, the vaccine programme continued to roll out well across Northern Ireland, and businesses began to reopen their doors to customers once again. Kicking off a busy period of events, we held our EURES cross border tax briefing on 22 April. This was a very useful virtual seminar which provided both cross
(L-R) Mairead, Anna, Dawn, and Paul from the Chamber visiting Strabane
border workers and employers with information on social security and tax issues as well as outlining the implications for companies with staff who work in both jurisdictions. The Chamber welcomed former Economy Minister Diane Dodds MLA to the North West on 28 April as she visited a number of businesses and key stakeholders in the city. Arranged to coincide
with the planned reopening of the economy on 30 April, Minister Dodds outlined her plans for economic recovery post-pandemic and heard first-hand the challenges facing local firms in the North West. On the same day, we held our webinar, Closing the Skills Gap with Apprentices. Held in conjunction with Workplus, attendees heard how businesses can grow and expand by offering opportunities to apprentices and futureproofing their talent pipelines. The following day, in partnership with SONI, we held our Shaping Our Electricity Future webinar, discussing the organisation’s new report which outlined four innovative options on how we can fundamentally change Northern Ireland’s grid as we strive towards clean energy. The event formed part of the 14-week public consultation process as SONI sought feedback on its new report.
(L-R) Gary Middleton, MLA for Foyle; Selina Horshi, Managing Director, White Horse Hotel; Dawn McLaughlin, Chamber President; Paul Clancy, Chamber Chief Executive; Diane Dodds MLA, former Economy Minister; and Paul Curtis, Partner, Curtis Opticians
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Into May and we heard from some of the team at CavanaghKelly at our Covid financial supports update. With a specific focus on the government’s Bounce Back Loans scheme, Michael and Anita from CavanaghKelly took attendees through the next steps for businesses on their repayments
