{"id":7335,"date":"2017-10-17T15:15:27","date_gmt":"2017-10-17T15:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ballymenachamber.co.uk\/?p=7335"},"modified":"2017-10-22T15:16:50","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T15:16:50","slug":"ballymena-doing-better-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/?p=7335","title":{"rendered":"Ballymena Doing Better Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Local businesses were given an insight by several organisations of how they are helping local companies do better business at the latest \u2018BID for Business\u2019 breakfast, organised by Ballymena Borough Chamber of Commerce and Industry on behalf of Ballymena BID, which took place last week in the Adair Arms Hotel.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Melanie Christie Boyle from Ballymena Business Centre and Clare O\u2019Neill from the Northern Regional College (NRC) talked about the various programmes and courses that are available to assist SMEs in the surrounding area.<\/p>\n

Offering free, as well as subsidised courses from \u2018Growing a micro business\u2019 to \u2018Co-Innovate\u2019 and \u2018Business planning\u2019 from Ballymena Business Centre and business support initiatives from NRC, those present heard of many opportunities that could help their businesses.<\/p>\n

Clare O\u2019Neill, Head of Business Development and External Engagement at Northern Regional College, informed those present of the InnovateUs programme which is 100% funded.<\/p>\n

Clare said, \u201cNorthern Regional College\u00a0supports the economy\u00a0by providing a wide\u00a0range of\u00a0services to\u00a0the\u00a0business community\u00a0including consultancy, training and upskilling. Advice on funding and tailored solutions are developed and delivered by our Business Development team and Industry specific technical and academic staff.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em>\u201cThere is also a skills focus programme which is 75% funded by the Department for the Economy, which allows for the training and upskilling of your staff, which in turn will help your business growth and efficiency.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Speakers on the day included, Stephen Glasgow, Financial Director from Camerons Ballymena; Gary Tinsdale, owner of Tinsdale Furniture and William McKeown, McKeown PAT Testing.<\/p>\n

\"\"Pictured at the \u2018BID for Business\u2019 breakfast event that was held recently in the Adair Arms, which focused on \u2018Doing Better Business\u2019 are Gary Tinsdale, owner of Tinsdale Furniture, Melanie Christie Boyle from Ballymena Business Centre, Ronan\u00a0<\/span>McCann, Ballymena Chamber of Commerce and Industry President and Alison Moore, BID Manager.<\/h6>\n
\"\"The Ballymena BID and the Ballymena Borough Chamber of Commerce and Industry recently held the new series of their successful \u2018BID for Business\u2019 breakfast event on \u2018Doing Better Business\u2019. Pictured at the event in the Adair Arms are William McKeown, PAT Testing, Clare O\u2019Neill, keynote speaker from Northern Regional College, Ronan McCann, Ballymena Chamber of Commerce and Industry President, Alison Moore, BID Manager and Stephen Glasgow, Financial Director for Camerons Ballymena.<\/h6>\n

Each speaker told of how either the NRC or the Ballymena Business Centre has helped their business. William McKeown of PAT Testing has gone on to be an innovation finalist and has seen continued growth and success via the assistance of NRC, where Gary Tinsdale of Tinsdale Furniture has seen his company grow exponentially with continued export to GB and Ireland, advocating the benefits of working with the Ballymena Business Centre.<\/p>\n

Alison Moore, BID Manager said, \u201cThis event was very valuable to many businesses within the BID area, and offered them many ideas and learning points on how they can gain assistance for their organisations. It was also a pleasure to hear of the many success stories and of how these two organisations are able to offer practical advice to many of our local businesses.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Ballymena Chamber of Commerce and Industry\u2019s President, Ronan McCann said, \u201cI\u2019d like to thank both Melanie (Christie Boyle) of Ballymena Business Centre and Clare (O\u2019Neill) from the NRC for their time and informative presentation. I\u2019m sure most attendees have left with some food for thought.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

There will be a \u2018Starting or growing a business\u2019 event on Saturday 18th November in Ballymena Business Centre\u2019s Church Street building.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local businesses were given an insight by several organisations of how they are helping local companies do better business at the latest \u2018BID for Business\u2019 breakfast, organised by Ballymena Borough Chamber of Commerce and Industry on behalf of Ballymena BID, which took place last week in the Adair Arms Hotel. Melanie Christie Boyle from Ballymena […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[28,36,48,21,12],"class_list":["post-7335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","tag-busines-breakfast","tag-events","tag-latest-news","tag-local-economy","tag-recent-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7335"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7335"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7335\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7339,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7335\/revisions\/7339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballymenachamber.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}