Athlone to host major business networking event

Athlone is to be the venue for a major two-day national business networking forum designed to promote businesses in the west this week. MeetWest 2012 takes place tomorrow and Wednesday in the Hodson Bay Hotel. Following on from a very successful inaugural event last year the objective of MeetWest 2012 is to promote business in the region and the programme has been arranged to offer new and innovative networking opportunities for attendees in a variety of formats. It is anticipated that up to 400 delegates will participate in the event making it an essential addition to every business diary. Roscommon County Council is working with Galway and Mayo County Councils, Galway City Council, the Enterprise Boards in Roscommon, Galway and Mayo and the Western Development Commission on MeetWest 2012. Other agencies like Enterprise Ireland, IDA, Udaras na Gaeltachta and the Galway Chamber of Commerce are also actively encouraging businesses to attend the event. MeetWest 2012 will begin with an introduction by Minister for Small Business John Perry followed by an input from Jim Miley of The Gathering and formerly myhome.ie. This will be followed by a series of workshops called 'An Hour with an Expert' hosted by experts from various business fields and from public bodies who will speak about increasing sales and operating a business successfully. This element will give smaller groups the opportunity to interact with successful companies in areas such as innovation, social media, tax, branding, procurement and exporting. Another new element to this year's event is an Innovation Zone, organised by the Institutes of Technology and NUIG. These third level colleges play a key role in business and the future of business and the Innovation Zone will take place throughout the day, featuring companies who have benefited from the development of Innovation by applying creative solutions to add value to their products and services The first day will finish with a networking dinner addressed by guest speaker and Castlerea native Irial Finan, Executive Vice President of Coca-Cola. The second day of MeetWest 2012 features the pre arranged business networking meetings. Also attending the launch of MeetWest 2012 were delegates from last year's event including Seamus Quinn from My IT Department, a company providing quality driven, high value IT support services to small and medium sized businesses throughout Ireland. Seamus said that his company has directly benefited from attendance at MeetWest last year. "We landed three key contracts as a direct result of attending MeetWest. The event also spawned an entirely new business for us which will launch shortly. I urge all businesses in the region to attend MeetWest 2012. Partners organising MeetWest 2012 are Roscommon County Council, Galway City Council, Galway County Council, Mayo County Council, Roscommon County Enterprise Board, Galway County and City Enterprise Board, Mayo County Enterprise Board, the Western Development Commission, Enterprise Ireland, IDA and Udaras na Gaeltachta For more details please see www.meetwest.ie