Emergency General Meeting - 5 July

This morning’s Flood was a disaster for businesses and households in the town.  I know every business owner and householder affected has been working non-stop since it hit to deal with the aftermath and those who have been more fortunate than others have been helping their neighbours.  The great community spirit of Clonakilty is our greatest asset at a time like this.

The Chamber e-mail account has been receiving regular offers of help which we have been passing on.  While everyone is busy with the clean up today, we have decided it would be wise to call an Emergency General Meeting of the Chamber in one week’s time on Thursday, 5^th July 2012 in the Chamber offices in Harte’s Courtyard at 6pm, to review the situation and decide on action to support recovery.

This disaster hits at the start of the peak season.  We have to salvage the coming season and the best thing that Clonakilty can do is send out a message that it is open for business.

On that point the official launch of Jungle City has been scheduled for tomorrow for some time and is to be launched by the Minister Tourism who is due to be in Clonakilty specially for that event.

I know that the Jungle City organisers were very sensitive to the plight of business owners today and have questioned whether the launch should be postponed in light of events.  However, as a Chamber we strongly urged them to press ahead with the launch and to use this great event to send a very strong message that Clonakilty is open for business.

Clonakilty was in the news today because of a flood disaster.  It will be in the news from tomorrow because of Jungle City.  What better way to tell the world that we are down but not out and what we need to rebuild our businesses are visitors back in our town.

Finally, on top of the numerous messages of support today, we received a very kind suggestion from the Southern Star that they would run an ad for Clonakilty Chamber members promoting those individual businesses also announcing that Clonakilty is open for business despite what has happened.  This could run next week or whenever members feel it would be to maximum advantage.  Any members having an interest in being included in this should contact Mick directly at the Chamber e-mail address.

All of our thoughts are with everyone affected by this disaster today.  If anyone needs help, just ask.  This is when we need to be here for each other.

Kind regards,

Flor