Taking Care of Business
by Cormac Monaghan

OK… so where did that year go…?  It is hard to believe that it’s December already.   Tempus certainly does fugit, mar a deirtear.  Speaking of time passing, the 2012 / 2013 season marks the 20^th year of the Ireland Canada Chamber of Commerce here in Toronto. We are very proud of having reached this landmark and on behalf of the current Board I want to thank our Sponsors, our Past Presidents, Directors and most especially our Membership, past and present, for helping us grow to where we are today.  Also, a big thank you to our Executive Director, Eamonn O’Loghlin, who has been at the Chamber wheel for many of those years.

We marked the milestone at a reception with Mr. Richard Bruton T.D., Ireland’s Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the National Club in early November.  Mr. Bruton was in town with a Trade Mission with 30 visiting companies, mostly on the software side, capitalizing on strong ground work done in advance by Ross O’Colmain and the Enterprise Ireland team here.  Some of these companies are setting up Canadian operations and we in the Chamber welcome them to Toronto and wish them every success.   An edited video of the evening’s events is available for your viewing pleasure by clicking on this link: http://livemedia.biz/iccc.html This recording is courtesy of Chamber member John Darmody of Live Media Inc, a true pro in this field.  

We won’t spend too long looking backwards, rather our focus is on the future, which as a famous ex Beatle once sung, has only just begun.  That immediate future will certainly include many more young Irish arriving to Canada, given the Canadian Government’s decision to double Ireland’s annual visa allocation in the coming few years. Many of these new arrivals, like many of us before them, will come to Canada for ‘just a year’ and will find themselves happily still here many years later. The Chamber is committed to helping these new arrivals succeed in Canada, as evidenced by our $10,000 contribution during 2012 to the newly opened Irish Canadian Immigration Centre.   We see this as a fantastic opportunity to build a network of great breadth and depth, one that will be of significant benefit to us all, and indeed to Ireland, in the years ahead, a network whose reach and clout would be on a par with those of the larger ex-pat communities here in Toronto. If you are not already a member, please consider this an invitation to join us as we move forward in this direction.     

At our recent AGM, four of our Directors stepped aside, Past President Michael Power, long serving Vice President Finance, Dr. John O’Dwyer, and Members at large, Declan Tracey and Michael Mundy.  We are sorry to lose such experience, wisdom and enthusiasm, but are delighted to welcome new Board Members Alannah McMahon, Rob McDonnell and Keith Martin. Although we have yet to do the calculations, it’s quite possible that the average age of the Board has snuck below 40 for the first time in many years!   Check out Board and their bios, and sure while you’re there, click on the link to join up…!

Wishing you and yours a very Happy Christmas, and all the very best for the New Year