Galway Chamber will kick off its Autumn Business Lunch series by welcoming guest speaker John O’Shea of GOAL to its lunch on Tuesday September 30 at 12.30 pm in the Clayton Hotel, Galway, in an event sponsored by National Irish Bank.
John O'Shea, sports reporter and humanitarian, was born in Limerick in 1944 and spent his formative years in Charleville and Westport. For 24 years he worked as a sports reporter with the Irish Press Group and in 1977 he established GOAL as a humanitarian organisation dedicated to helping the poorest of the poor in the developing world. From its first year of operation in 1977 GOAL has grown to spend more than €500 million implementing relief and development programmes in 50 countries in the past 30 years. GOAL currently employs approximately 145 GOALies who work alongside some 2,800 local staff to implement humanitarian programmes in 11 countries across Africa, Asia and South America.
According to Mr. O’Shea GOAL appreciates that many companies have done much to improve the relationship between the corporate and charity worlds through their corporate social responsibility programmes, and and that the charity is very fortunate to receive support from them.
”Corporate social responsibility (CSR ) means in practical terms to GOAL that a corporate body or business would provide GOAL with support by either offering financial support for our programmes overseas or by providing GOAL with professional and experienced personnel on secondment from their organisation either to work on home based or overseas programmes.
‘At different times GOAL may have different needs, or priorities in terms of what support we would like to have from the business fraternity. However, what is always a priority for us is suitably qualified and experienced personnel and we encourage this as a method of CSR wherever possible. It is not only a huge cost saving to the organisation and a meaningful way of keeping administration costs at exceptionally low levels, but it is also important for GOAL to bring this level of expertise and entrepreneurship to programmes that may not traditionally attract such personnel.”
At the Galway Chamber Business Lunch, John O’Shea will speak on his experiences, his organization and what CSR means in practical terms.
The event is sponsorted by National Irish Bank which was re-launched in April 2006 under its new parent - Danske Group, and now has a well established and wide branch network throughout the country.
For further information and to book for this event, contact Elaine on 091 535028
