Dear Member, 

Welcome to this week's SFA e-zine.  

Firstly, I would like to wish all our members a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year.

Over the Christmas period are opening hours are as follows:

• Friday, 21 December – Normal business hours
• Monday, 24 December – Wednesday 26 December - Closed 
• Thursday, 27 December – Open 9am - 4pm (contact Sven on 01 605 1602 or Helen on 01 605 1668)
• Friday, 28 December – Open 9am - 4pm (contact Sven on 01 605 1602 or Helen on 01 605 1668)
• Monday, 31 December & Tuesday, 1 January - Closed
• Wednesday, 2 January 2019 - Normal business hours 

Our next ezine will be on 15 January and going forward in 2019 we will be sending our Tuesday newsletter on a fortnightly basis. 

In this edition we guide you through the annual performance appraisal so that you and your employees can assess goals achieved, areas for development and plan ahead for the coming year.

The SFA team together with our colleagues in Ibec are working very hard to address the concerns of the small business community in relation to Brexit, we provide you with an update below. We include a reminder of the key dates in 2019 for PAYE Modernisation and link to a Currency Risk Management booklet for Irish SMEs recently launched by the Department of Business Enterprise and innovation. We also include details of a Quick Guide for Selling Online from the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.

Start the new year off on the right foot at our Business Bytes event on 9 January which will discuss workplace health and well-being and register to attend the next SFA webinar which has been rescheduled to 24 January and focuses on the characteristics of successful retailers. On 31 January we will be running our first digital marketing masterclass with 3XE focusing on social media fundamentals for small businesses, find out more below. The 2019 Business Connect event is taking place on 7 February in the Aviva Stadium, bookings are now open so be sure to register your place. We also provide a summary of recent press coverage.

As always, we’d love to hear from you about any queries you may have, issues you wish to have raised with Government or other stakeholders and your ideas on how we can improve the business environment for us all. Please contact me on tel: 01 605 1602 or e-mail: sven@sfa.ie or tweet: @SFA_Irl or visit: www.sfa.ie.

Kind regards, 

Sven Spollen-Behrens

SFA Director