Dear Members and Friends,

Welcome back from what I hope was a restful and enjoyable summer break for you.  Our chamber is now well into full swing of its social and business activities for the fall, as we have just held our annual Crayfish event.  A true success and one that will be hard to beat in the future.   We are especially thankful for the generosity shown by our main sponsor, Volvo Group North America, as represented in our chamber by board member Jonathan Miller.  We also would like to extend our appreciation to the sponsorship from the Karlsson's Gold spirits company and IKEA for providing the ultra-fresh crayfish themselves.   I would be remiss if I did not mention how fortunate we are to have had the energy and dedication to success of the Crayfish event shown by our Executive Manager, Maja Persson, and our new intern, Anna Wiinberg, a business and international studies undergraduate student at American University. 

Of course, the fun just keeps coming, as the next big social/business event for our chamber is the upcoming Swedish Embassy Open Golf Tournament to be held on October 28, 2010 at the Old Hickory golf course in Woodbridge, Virginia.  We especially  wish to thank our main sponsor, Nammo AS, for its generosity in choosing once again to be our premium Platinum sponsor  this year.  Pick your team now and see if your business can sponsor one of the 18 holes on the course.  For more details see: http://www.sacc-dc.org/golf2010.html.

Please mark your calendars for E-Days Gothenburg as the 2010 event will be held in Gothenburg, Sweden on November 8-10.  SACC-USA has worked very hard to arrange for key speakers, exhibitors, seminars, business matchmaking, and many other opportunities, to engage in valuable international networking.  For more information visit: http://sacc-edays.org/goteborg/.   

Please also note that our long-time corporate member Ericsson Inc.  has generously agreed to sponsor our holiday event scheduled to be held November 30th, 2010 at House of Sweden under the theme Technology for Good.  This grand holiday event will include a fantastic photo exhibit, as well as a Swedish holiday smörgåsbord, a traditional Santa Lucia procession, and much more. Please see below for further details.

Much like the 2008 federal election in the United States, Sweden recently concluded a game-changing election cycle with the neo-conservative Sweden Democrat Party candidates achieving victory by receiving a nearly final 5.7% of the vote.  The Sweden Democrat party will enter parliament for the first time in Swedish history.  Such a turn of events will soon likely be felt throughout Sweden, as that party will find themselves in the position of sought-after dealmaker, as Sweden is faced with a narrowly split parliament with no clear majority block.  Our chamber looks forward to soon hosting one or more speakers to explain the Swedish election results and what may be the effects felt in Swedish trade and on foreign policy.  Look to our web site for scheduled events on this topic:  www.sacc-dc.org.