‘We help our members grow through a variety of networking opportunities.’

President Deborah Loughran’s Monthly Chamber Column courtesy of the Newry Reporter

The last couple of weeks have been somewhat of an oddity as electioneering ramps up.  It has been much easier than usual to get political representation at events and there is a great air of enthusiasm for everything.  I would however urge you to read the manifesto literature you receive very carefully to fully understand what exactly our potential representatives are saying they will do/support in the business community.  We invited each of the Newry & Armagh candidates to answer the same list of questions posed by Chamber members –  we are still waiting on responses from some parties but we will be putting the Q&A on the Chamber website when we receive all the responses back to help members and the business community make up their mind about who best represents them.

We also heard that Ballymena BID team had been successful in getting its Business Improvement District across the line. Sarah Henry and the BID team in Newry have been working extremely hard to get the views of local businesses about what the appetite is like for a local BID.  Sarah has been meeting businesses individually and last week hosted a workshop session in Newry Library with guest speakers from other BID areas in NI and England.  If you are not sure what a BID is and how it might be relevant to your business please do come along to Newry Library this Thursday evening at 5.30pm when Sarah will be hosting another session. Alternatively, contact Sarah at the Newry BID office, T:028 3025 0303 or E: bidsmanager@newry.com

We are busy working on a number of events at the moment with our Annual Dinner confirmed for 28th May and the Greater Newry Area Business Awards in September with details of both being announced in the coming weeks.  We are also looking forward to supporting our corporate partner Autoline Insurance Group at their  40th Anniversary Charity Ball in June.

The Chamber is relaunching its Greater Vision Group which comprises of representatives from industry, business support agencies and NMD District Council to look at a range of strategic projects and initiatives to push through for the greater good of this area. One of these is the Southern Relief Road which I am delighted to say there has been a bit of renewed momentum around in recent weeks.

 #Newryhour on Twitter is continuing and we would appreciate if you would get involved.  There has been an number of link ups, introductions and potentially new business done already through the forum and we hope that it will continue to gain momentum. Anyone can get involved, it is good fun and everyone is made to feel very welcome.  We have even had an offer from Destination Newry to stream a live Newryhour meet up which is something we are looking at going forward. Get involved by logging onto Twitter between 9-10pm every Tuesday evening and search for #Newryhour.