‘Moving with the times’ in Mallow chamber

A Cavan native was named the President of Mallow Chamber of Commerce at the turn of the year. Visiting home for the Easter weekend Joyce Good Hammond caught up with the Celt on her new role, and how she aims to help businesses balancing traditional sales techniques with AI and social media.

Business is something that Joyce grew up with, having grown up helping out in the Cavan Town family firm, GT Electric. Established by her late father Robert and now run by her brother Alvan with the help of her mum Jean, it is still going strong after more than 50 years. Joyce recalls helping out “on the shop floor” from about 10 years old.

She made the move to Mallow in 2007 where her husband Richard is from, and got involved with the local chamber after a year in the Cork town.

The Cloverhill native also got involved with the heritage committee, Mallow Development Partnership, as well as “a number” of other groups by the banks of the Blackwater.

“I had no family down there apart from my husband's family so it was a matter of getting to know people in the community and getting to know other business people,” she says.

Joyce and her husband Richard, a Senior Barrister, also established Hammond Good LLP, where she practises as a solicitor. A former President of the Southern Law Association, she also teaches with the Law Society of Ireland.

Within her Chamber role, her aim is to “get people to live, work and do business in Mallow and to get the businesses to work together”.

She aims to keep business in Mallow, rather than going to cities “beyond” such as Limerick or Cork.

While Cavan Town is “much bigger” than Mallow, they share “similar” traits.

“Everybody knows everybody,” she explains.

Forward focus

Mallow Chamber, which consists of 70 members, will host a workshop for their members on how they can use AI, TikTok and Canva to help them grow. Meanwhile, another workshop in collaboration with the Local Enterprise Office will focus on store layout, which is following on from a previous workshop done on window displays.

“Their online business is another business and they want to be able to develop that further,” she said, describing how some business owners told her they are doing one fifth of their trade online and are operating countrywide.

“That's a significant portion so it's very important to keep moving with the times. Everything is very much gone into a social media setting compared to what it would have been ten or fifteen years ago,” says Joyce. “It's literally about listening to those members in the chamber and seeing what they actually want and providing the courses that they need to assist in their own business.

“There is a lot of work involved in it, there's no doubt about it but I'm enjoying meeting people and helping businesses,” she concluded.