SARURE (Saving Rural Retail) South Sligo announces the third in a series of events. All interested parties are welcome to join online on Tuesday, 3rd November at 10-11a.m. as SARURE explores the opportunities for rural retail with Susan Hayes, the Positive Economist.
The Positive Economist
An Opportunity for Rural Retail in South Sligo
Susan, “The Positive Economist” will virtually come to Sligo and give a whistle stop tour of tools, technologies and techniques that you can put to work in your business right away to make the best of your business.
Susan Hayes Culleton
“The local economy is the economic glue that bring the social fabric together. People rely on local businesses to produce goods, services and experiences every day. Ireland has been catapulted into a totally different environment right now that it has never seen before. Rural retail has an opportunity now to take advantage of two mega trends – the accelerated move to buying online and the working from home adoption that has swept across the country. However, there are challenges that range from finding finance to motivating staff to standing out among the crowd to uncertainty and more.”
Susan regularly presents at conferences and keynotes on economics, the stock market, banking, entrepreneurship and finance. As the Positive Economist, she is a frequent media speaker, regularly interviewed on The Sunday Times (Malta), TV3, RTE, Newstalk and Today FM (Ireland). This will be an interactive session with Susan with an opportunity for businesses to ask questions.
Ray O’Grady, Sligo County Council discusses the projects background
“The traditional model of high street retailing is under significant pressure in the modern age. The pressure on the high street retail sector is being felt most acutely in rural areas of not just County Sligo but in similar such areas all over Europe. This has increased two-fold in 2020 with the arrival of COVID-19 and the added pressures on retail. Sligo County Council has partnered with Local Authorities and Universities from across the continent to seek innovative solutions to the growing problem of the loss of vital retail services in our valuable rural communities. We look forward to this virtual event discussing the opportunities for businesses offering rural retail in Sligo”.
SARURE is an Interreg Europe project to which Sligo County Council is partnered. It is an inter-regional cooperation project which is tasked with improving policies aimed at SME competitiveness. The project is led by the Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Services of Teruel (Spain) and we are joined by partners from Germany, Greece, Spain, Finland, Poland and Sweden. The project is funded by the European Development Fund and will run from June 2019 until November of 2022. The project is led in Sligo County Council by Michael Carty and Ray O’Grady.