Small business training and mentoring programme a huge success

A group of business people from the North Cork area who received their certificates from Kevin Curran, Acting Manager Local Enterprise Office Mallow (front centre) following completion of the course on Accelerate Management Development at Springfort Hall Hotel Mallow. Also in the picture are course tutors Barry Moran and Padraig Considine (back right).

A group of business people from the North Cork area who received their certificates from Kevin Curran, Acting Manager Local Enterprise Office Mallow (front centre) following completion of the course on Accelerate Management Development at Springfort Hall Hotel Mallow. Also in the picture are course tutors Barry Moran and Padraig Considine (back right).

A management develop-ment programme from the Local Enterprise Office Cork North and West in Mallow, aimed at helping local small businesses accelerate their growth prospects, was completed last week in Springfort Hall, Mallow. The ‘Acce-lerate Management Development Programme’ is geared towards owners and managers of Irish micro-enterprises in North Cork which commenced in September 2015.

Through a series of specially-designe modules and one-to-one mentoring sessions, 12 small business owners in North Cork learned new management, leadership and business skills to carry over to drive their businesses forward. The 12 participants were Donagh Raftery, Ballyhoura Apple Juice, Churchtown, Mary Dennehy, Brogeen Crafts, Kanturk, Tony O’Brien, Master Butcher, Millstreet, Cathal Burke, Homevalue, Kanturk, Hilliard Tanner, Tanner Structural Designs Ltd, Kilworth, William Healy, Crystal Computers, Mallow, Joanne Dennehy, Choices Café, Mallow, Gerald Burns and Julian Twomey, Bainne Codladh Ltd, Kanturk, Gerald Leahy, GAM Ltd, Mallow, Miriam O’Connor, Webkids, Mallow, Rory and Sheila Magorrian, Kindinan Farm, Kindinan, and Ruth Reidy Nutrition 4U, Mitchelstown.

Mr Kevin Curran, Acting Head of Local Enterprise, presented the participants with their certificates on completing the programme and praised their efforts, saying “‘Accelerate’ has been designed to help local small business owners address the business challenges that might be hindering their growth prospects. After completing the initial start-up phase of setting up a new business, it’s vital for micro-enterprises to keep investing in continuous improvement, to help develop their business and to enable them to sustain and grow local jobs.”

“All around the country, we expect that the Local Enterprise Offices will be providing enterprise training to around 27,000 owners and managers of small businesses again this year and the ‘Accelerate’ Programme is a strate-gically important addition to our range of programmes and initiatives for Ireland’s micro-enterprise sector.

Further information around the ‘Accelerate Manage-ment Development Programme’ is available by contacting Joan Kelleher at Local Enter-prise office Cork North & West and at email: joan.kelleher@leo.corkcoco.ie