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I hope you have enjoyed strong business success this last year. The Chamber is in business for business and we have been striving to increase our relevance to you primarily and to increase our involvement in business development across the board.
In business development we focused on skills, as you had highlighted this was a critical area in terms of your ability to compete. We succeeded in securing a significant grant from Skillnets Ltd. and we launched the Fingal Skillnet in January 2006. To date we have over 300 employees particpate in the programme representing over 40 companies in the Fingal area. The funding from Skillnets Ltd alows for us to subsidised each training course whilst providing best in class trainers and facillities.
Indeed, this emphasis on training was borne out by recent comments from the IDA in relation to training. The IDA launched a global marketing campaign on the theme "Knowledge is in our nature", to further raise awareness of Ireland as a place to do business. The agency said it had supported 71 new business projects in 2005, including a record 50 R&D projects and had the highest gain in IDA supported employment since 2000.
In Fingal we have seen our share of new projects and our intention, together with all our partners in Fingal, is to ensure that we have the most supportive business environment in which to locate and maintain your business growth.
We also looked to broaden our involvement in the community and hosted our first ever Presidents Ball with the theme of ‘Business in the Community’. We were able to highlight many great examples of the generous support you make on an ongoing basis into the community and our intention is to repeat this again later this year.
We hosted our first cultural evening together with the Italian Embassy and celebrated the food and drink of Italy in a tasting event which proved a great success. We continue to look at other ways in which we can celebrate together.
Our network evenings and business breakfasts continued to attract regular number of members on subjects such as Health and Safety, Corporate Governance, Employment Law and the annual Budget Breakfast. Our attendance in 2004 was just over 800 and I am delighted with the result for 2005 of 1463.
Looking forward we are looking to strengthen the value we can bring to you and to support your business growth. We are actively driving the Fingal Skillnet and are currrently developing two funding applications that will focus on the needs of Migrant Workers and Women in Business.
We will continue to organise regular networking events to give you the opportunity to meet with other members and to look for new business. We are evaluating lunch events for the first time and would welcome feedback on whether you would support such events, not only as networking events, but perhaps also giving you the chance to entertain your clients.
We have recently launched the Chamber of Knowledge competition which will run through the year to foster better links between our companies and to create some competitive spirit and fun for everyone involved.
We continue to represent business in a number of different bodies and are actively driving the transport agenda for our area, hosting regular reviews with all interested parties to improve the infrastructure we need for our businesses.
We have re-launched our website and our e-zine ‘Chamber Bells’ to keep you abreast of all the latest developments. We took part in the rebranding of the Chamber movement in Ireland and we strive to ensure you are up to date on all our new developments.
I want to thank you for your continued support for the Chamber. The Chamber team are there to represent you and support your business growth. We very much welcome your feedback on all our activities and wish you continued success in all your business ventures.
Hugh O’Byrne
President