For local businesses who've been meaning to access more federal funding, tomorrow and Friday mark the last chances for you to get some expert help wading through the red tape separating you from it. The Saskatchewan Chamber of Commerce hosts another webinar tomorrow morning and Friday afternoon, their last in the series. 

The "Grab Your Slice" webinars the Chamber has been putting on have been free to attend and have seen a steady uptick in interest. Consequently, the Chamber has seen more businesses getting their share of federal funding, something that was lacking in Saskatchewan for a long time. 

"We do have some more federal dollars that are coming down through the chamber network," said Estevan Chamber of Commerce executive director Jackie Wall. "We're working on that right now and they'll be rolling out in the next week or two, another one probably in the new year."

There are other new federal aid programs coming down, including a rent subsidy, though not all of these will be discussed in the webinar at 10:00 tomorrow morning and 2:00 Friday afternoon. As always, the goal is to help Saskatchewan businesses who might be struggling to navigate the bureaucracy needed to get their share of the funds.

"As a business, you need to explore all avenues," Wall said. "That's more than just the government funding, that's new ways of doing business. We've seen that really done well with our restaurants I believe with the curbside pickups and the family packs and the grocery packs and delivery of course. You really have to look at your own business and see what's there for government support."

Wall added that the uptick in participants over the last couple of webinars was nice to see. In the beginning, Saskatchewan was grabbing less than two percent of the available funds from the federal government, a number that has also started to rise. 

"I think with something like that the initial couple, you start to hear good word of mouth and people saying you've got to sign up for this webinar," she said. "Any webinar that looks like it's going to help your business, sign up, especially if it's free... If you're 20 minutes into it and you don't see any value you can always log off."

Wall added that local chamber members have been enquiring about the webinars and they've been encouraging people to sign up to see for themselves what it's all about.