Only five days to go now until the London 2012 Paralympic Games. The Village that hosted over 10,000 Olympic athletes has been transformed to host 4,280 Paralympic athletes, 3,500 team officials and 1,225 Games Officials.  The wheelchair repair centre is up and running and the rooms are starting to fill.
In the run up to the London 2012 Games Sport for Business has spoken with individual corporate partners of Paralympics Ireland to get a sense of what motivated their involvement and how they have best been able to make it work.
Cadbury is the one partner which has carried over from the Olympics to the Paralympics, ensuring a year to remember for colleagues and communities around the company.  We spoke to Corporate Affairs Director Deirdre Harte about some of the work that has gone in to making it all work.
Sport for Business: How did Cadbury first form a relationship with Paralympics Ireland?
Deirdre Harte, Cadbury Corporate Affairs Director: In 2008 Cadbury signed up as a partner of London 2012 across the Olympic and Paralympic Games.  It was a natural extension for Ireland given the ‘home games’ nature of the events and in 2011 we signed a three year deal with Paralympics Ireland to carry us through the Games and beyond.
What were the main reasons for becoming involved in the partnership?
We have a strong manufacturing base in Ireland and have always been considered as a well loved brand.  We felt very proud to be associated with the games and we wanted to bring that across to consumers, to our colleagues, and to the communities we are involved in.
From the outset we wanted to achieve parity between our support for both sets of athletes and in February we signed up to support our World Champion cyclist Catherine Walsh.  The launch of our sponsorship saw Catherine stand shoulder to shoulder alongside Paul Hession, Grainne Murphy and Linda Byrne.
The coverage we gained from this was excellent and set the tone for what has proven so far to be a wonderful year.
What have been the most effective ways so far that you have made the relationship work?
People will perhaps be most familiar with our partnership with RTE on the broadcasting of the Games.
We featured across all of the Olympics coverage and will do the same for the Paralympic highlights coverage which the station will be offering through TV, radio and digital.
We have also created specific Paralympic stings, following the same theme as we had in place two weeks ago and these will air for the first time next Wednesday in coverage of the Opening Ceremony.
We began on pack promotion for customers back in March offering ‘Golden Ticket’ wrappers across the Cadbury range.  This tied us very closely from a long way out with support of the Games and Team Ireland.  It also gave us the opportunity to bring customers over for events the memory of which will last a lifetime.
We worked closely with Catherine and her tandem partner Fran Meehan, providing the full support of our agencies in helping her to raise her own profile as an athlete and an ambassador for Cadbury and the Paralympics.
Her achievements in representing Ireland at four Paralympics and winning Bronze in Pentathlon at Sydney 2000 are immense and her World Class performance on the track since switching sports put her among Ireland’s most successful sports stars.  We have been able to bring her story to a wide audience.
Through our partnership she has also been able to access new equipment including a bespoke bike for herself and Fran which, fortuitously for us, she chose in purple for the Games.
She has also come out and spoken to colleagues.  We put on a ‘100 days to go’ get together which was recognised by staff as among the most inspirational events they had been privileged to attend.
Cadbury has also opened up the opportunity for our staff to play their part.  We had and will have 70 staff from Coolock, Tallaght and Rathmore travel over to London to act as ‘Games makers.’ They have been part of a remarkable volunteer effort – assisted by the company – which many have said has been a life changing experience.
We also want to maintain the momentum that the Games are creating.  An important element of our partnership with Paralympics Ireland has been our support of the talent search event that will take place in October.
This is what brought Mark Rohan into the Paralympic Sport movement and he has gone on to become a multiple World Champion and hopefully a star of London 2012.
What do you believe has been the main result of your involvement? 
The qualities that our Paralympic athletes display every day make this a wonderful partnership for Cadbury.  The motto of London 2012 is to inspire a generation and we are looking to live up to that ideal.
Being involved across our colleagues, customers and communities has enhanced the Cadbury reputation internally and externally and is something we are proud to have been involved in.
It would be impossible to single out one single highlight. There have been so many and there will be more to come in the weeks and then the months ahead.
The Irish team at the London 2012 Paralympic Games will comprise of 49 athletes across 10 sports. Ireland’s current Paralympic stars include Jason Smyth, Michael McKillop, Mark Rohan, Colin Lynch, Catherine Walsh and Catherine O’Neill.  All will be aiming to add London gold to their world or Paralympic titles.
The overall team size will be boosted to around 95 by a highly dedicated and professional team of staff across a variety of roles including Chef de Mission, Performance Director, Team Managers, coaches, sport science/medical and personal care support. The goal is to achieve at least five medals, three of them Gold, and a top-30 placing in the final table.
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