For a while, I've been troubled by the absence of a forum for small businesses to meet, network and partner in West Belfast. For I'm a firm believer in the old adage that a problem shared is a problem halved - nothing like meeting fellow-entrepreneurs and (to use Brian Moran's term) 'passionate business owners' to discover new ways to tackle that cashflow problem, taxing staffing issue, blocked access to capital or challenging sales target which is giving you a headache.
Other parts of our city are uniting around their small businesses - witness hairdresser Paul Carlin's Cavehill Traders' autumn market which put local small businesses front and centre.
And that's as it should be because small businesses, in the words of Irish American mayoral hopeful in San Francisco Mark Farrell (who has spent some time in our fair city): "Small businesses are essential to helping neighborhoods thrive, and their resilience and dedication to serving the community are truly inspiring." That's even before we consider the disproportionate burden of rates carried on the narrow shoulders of small businesses while those with broad shoulders — Huhtamaki, Spirit Aerosystems, Wrightbus and Thales for example — get a whopping 70 per cent off their rates bill.
So, in the fabulous West Belfast tradition of Ná habair é, dean é (don't say it, do it), the Andersonstown News is launching a series of intimate Roundtable discussions for small businesses in the west.
Our gatherings in An Chultúrlann on the Falls will be limited to 14 people — a butcher's dozen plus me — and our inaugural roundtable will feature Peter Dixon, former head of Phoenix Energy for three decades, a proud Scouser and a global troubleshooter taking on business challenges for I Squared Capital across three Continents.
Expect a chat, not a Powerpoint exposition. Our gathering will be board size - small enough for everyone to get their oar in, expansive enough to be of benefit connection-wise.
Peter Dixon, back right, with Annie Armstrong and community leaders in Twinbrook back in 2008
I have long been an admirer of Peter because he was never afraid to muck in and do the heavy lifting. Alone among corporate CEOs, he made West Belfast, orange and green, his stomping ground in the early days of Phoenix Gas - meeting community leaders on their home patch and treating every elected representative and community leader with respect. Our top pic shows him back in 2008 up in Twinbrook with residents' association leader Annie Armstrong and chums. The second pic, here, is taken when he had hair and owned the fastest-trike in the Vauxhall area of Liverpool. I particularly like the tin bath hanging on the shed!
MOVING UP A GEAR: Peter and brothers back in the day
Terry McCrudden of Clonard Credit Union, which has almost £100m in assets, has agreed to come along and help, in the immortal words of Danny Meyer, to set the table.
If you want to join us for breakfast on 7 November, nip over to Eventbrite now and grab a ticket. Admission, of course, includes grubstakes by another great West Belfast small business owner Donald Ó Rathghallaigh of An Chultúrlann café, Bia Loch Lao.
