Dear Member, 

Welcome to this edition of the SFA e-zine. 

Firstly, a warm welcome to Emma Crowley who has just joined the SFA team in the role of SFA HR Executive.  We also have two new additions to the SFA National Council, as well as a new Chair - be sure to take a look at their biographies.

Thank you to everyone that participated in our competition to win a case of Georges Duboeuf Beaujolais Nouveau wine - we have selected our lucky winner, congratulations again!  If you haven’t already done so, I would like to kindly ask you to take part in the Winter 2019 Small Firms Association’s Business Sentiment Survey. It shouldn’t take longer than 9 minutes.

The SFA Team is looking forward to seeing some familiar faces at the Members Christmas Evening on 12 December in the Davenport - this is a free event open to non-members, but we do ask that you please register attendance online first.  If you cannot make it to the Christmas evening, be sure to secure your spot at Business Connect 2020 in Aviva Stadium on 6 February, 2020. 

This week new legislation governing gift vouchers came into operation. We run through these new consumer protections ahead of the busy Christmas period. We also provide guidance and advice for you during the Christmas period so that you and your employees can get together to celebrate and acknowledge the employees’ contribution for the year.

I’d encourage small business owners as they prepare their plans and budgets for the coming 12 months to register for our webinar on 17 December looking at the economic trends and developments in the Irish labour market.  We also provide a summary of our 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