Cavan County Enterprise Board Celebrates 20 years supporting Cavan Businesses
Jenny McGovern
Over 120 business women and men from County Cavan attended a celebration dinner on Friday December 13 in the Radisson Blu Farnham Estate Hotel. The event was to mark the 20th anniversary of Cavan County Enterprise Board (Cavan CEB) and to celebrate the success of their most recent initiative, the Cavan Business Women’s Club that was launched in May this year and has been a huge success.
The after dinner speaker was Lieutenant Commander Marie Gleeson, one of the highest ranking female officers in the Naval Service who this year took over command of the LE Aoife, one of navy’s eight ships. Marie, who is from County Tipperary, is the only serving female captain at sea and holds peacekeeping medals for services in Chad in 2009. Orlaith Carmody and her husband Gavin Duffy of RTÉ’s Dragon’s Den fame, were also at the event which was attended by members of the Cavan Business Women’s Club (CBWC), Cavan CEB and invited guests .
The County Enterprise Boards (CEB) were set up by the Government in 1993 after a number of years marked by high failure rates in business, difficulties in accessing bank finance, high interest rates (up to 16/18%) and historically high levels of unemployment. To date, Cavan CEB has directly invested over €9 million in grant aid to over 630 projects employing 1,300 people, has over 1,600 regular clients, supported the provision of up to 100,000 sq ft of enterprise space throughout the County (via Cavan County Enterprise Fund) and managed over €40 million in funding from a range of EU and other international sources.
Vincent Reynolds, CEO of Cavan CEB, speaking at the event said. “A hallmark of the County Enterprise Boards is their flexibility, their client centric focus and rapid response capability. Delivering a quality and accessible service, as close as possible to the client, in other words, locally, with the right mix of supports, has proven to be very effective in supporting the establishment of new enterprises and sustaining existing enterprises. Internationalisation of business is the key to growth and prosperity. This now forms a central tenet of our operations and the potential to export and trade internationally is a vital consideration in our approach to supporting enterprise development”.
Speaking on behalf of the Cavan Women’s Business Club, a 90 strong women’s networking group, Marcella Rudden, Business Advisor, Cavan CEB said. “Any network or club is only as good as the members that it has, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of Cavan Business Women’s Club for their commitment, support and enthusiasm for this network, which we launched in May of this year. Over 120 women attended the launch and the subsequent membership was way beyond our expectations. It is our intention to continue to run the Cavan Business Women’s Club in 2014 and grow our membership even further”.
The CBWC meet regularly to hear from inspirational speakers, learn from workshops, showcase their businesses and to network. Any woman who owns or works in a business in County Cavan can join the CBWC by phoning the Cavan CEB 049-4377200 or emailing CBWC@cceb.ie