It was great to get back out into the real world for our 2022 Sport for Social Good events. The morning was given over to the online show live from the HBV Studios in North Dublin. We were joined by Matt Rogan, Valerie Hedin of Allianz, Niamh Murphy of the Huskies Agency, Kelly Cooke of the United Rugby Championship and Daniel Lambert of Bohemian FC to cover a wide but tightly themed range of Sport for Social Good projects and campaigns.
Over 400 Sport for Business members and guests tuned in to the show from across Ireland and around the world and the reaction was excellent.
Our hope is that the collaboration of which we spoke as being an essential part of making great things happen, will now flow from what we heard, that new projects will emerge that can achieve the lofty aim of making our world a better place.
We said during the course of the show that the mountain always looks the biggest from the bottom, and the journey is always the longest from the start. The easy thing is to look for an easier way but the rewards are greatest when the challenge seems to be the toughest.
We continued the theme of the online show when we hosted our first in-person gathering for almost two years in Doheny & Nesbitts in Dublin City Centre as day turned to night and there was a real sense of joy and camaraderie in those who gathered.
We heard then from Cormac MacDonnell of Sport Ireland and from Martin Murphy of the Aviva Stadium; from Anna McCarthy of Allianz, from Paddy Murphy of Branding Sport and from Donagh Morgan, the father in many ways of the Sport Ireland Campus and more from his days in government.
Brian Tighe from Twitter, international cricketer Kevin O’Brien, Eoin Conroy from Titan Experience and Caroline Kelly, Stephen Bradshaw and Alan Keane from Teneo were among the crew that gathered in what was a perfect setting for the first time back together after the last two years.
Dennis O’Connor of 2Into3, Elma Beirne from LineUp Sports and Orlagh Ní Chorcorain from the FAI as well as Aife Rigney from the United Rugby Championship were also there in the company of our special guest for the day Matt Rogan who spoke with eloquence and understated passion about the power we have as a ports ecosystem to do real good.
Below is the introduction from our live session in the morning, and the full first session with Matt Rogan, as well as the segment looking at the World’s Strongest Women campaign with Allianz and Company of Huskies.
Over the coming days, we will upload the final two elements of the show and we hope that you will enjoy the occasional inspiration and wisdom that emerged.
On Tuesday, March 1st we will publish our 2022 Sport for Social Good Report, again in partnership with Allianz and we are already excited for keeping a close eye on what will emerge from this important area over the next twelve months.
The first session of our Sport for Business Sport for Social Good event was a conversation with Matt Rogan on how sport can help us to recover from the blows of Covid over the last two years.
Valerie Hedin of Allianz and Niamh Murphy of Company of Huskies were next up on stage where we spoke about the mechanics and the motivation for a social impact campaign that has made a real difference already and is only in the first phase of execution.
Kelly Cooke joined us to talk about the URC platform of Take on Tomorrow that is allowing players to tell their stories of projects in society that make a difference to them.
More than just a football club, Bohemian FC Chief Operating Officer Daniel Lambert joined us for a conversation around climate change, migration, a bit of football, and an important message about how doing the right thing in areas off the pitch brought the club to a point of a sold-out Dalymount Park for the whole season and a stronger basis in every way, despite not winning as much on the pitch as might be demanded, at least not yet…
