Business Awards Event Cancelled

Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber has announced one of the region’s most popular events on the local business calendar will not take place later this year.

The Business Awards, an annual event since 2009 was set to return in October. However, in a statement released by Chief Executive Andrew Denniff he announced this year’s planned event has been cancelled but will return in 2021.

The difficult decision was taken in a bid to help safeguard and protect members of staff employed by the Chamber and Magna, as well as minimising risk to the local business community.

Statement from Andrew Denniff, Chief Executive, Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber:

“At a time when many businesses are facing some of the most difficult trading conditions in a generation, our priority is continue to support our local business community by helping them access the vital support needed to help them navigate their way through the Coronavirus pandemic

“We have taken steps to share new guidelines with our members, as well as introducing a number of new measures including moving our popular events and training programme online.

“We have been closely monitoring the Government’s advice and explored possible contingency plans to enable this year’s event to go ahead. However, after consulting our board, our sponsors and the venue, we feel the most sensible course action to take in the current circumstances is to cancel the 2020 Business Awards.

“Our awards evening is a key date in diaries of many local businesses, it is also an event which takes many months of careful planning and preparation – a process which began back in January. With so many uncertainties surrounding the current lockdown period and given the timescales involved , we feel the precautions we have made will help to keep safe our staff, our members and the wider business community.”

Rob Shaw, Director at Rotherham based GLU Recruit the headline sponsor added:

“We completely understand the decision made by the Chamber to cancel this year’s Business Awards and whilst this will be a huge miss, the decision has been made for all the right reasons.

 “We will continue to support the awards as headline sponsor in 2021 and will do all we can to help ensure it continues to be the highlight of the year for our local business community.”

Since the beginning of the lockdown period, Barnsley & Rotherham Chamber has moved its entire event programme online, as well as launching a new member support hub enabling Chamber members to access peer-to-peer support. For more information, visit: www.brchamber.co.uk