I’m writing about the event which I created in February, during the “Being Extraordinary” seminar.
Dara is a friend of mine since childhood, and she died 5 years ago last week from cancer. I had the idea of doing something to honour her memory and I came up with Javelins For Dara. Dara was a javelin champion, hence the name.
It is a golf event and my intention was that we would play golf and have a meal afterwards and fundraise for St Lukes Hospital where she had been a patient, and the Irish Cancer Society
.
Her two brothers – Geoff, who is my pal and Richie liked the idea and so we created the event. My target was to have 48 golfing and 22 dining, with a raffle.
Along the way I had the idea of requesting a jersey from Brian O’Driscoll to auction, which was accepted and also where our breakdown occurred. Due to his being In Australia, with the Irish team, then coming back to get married and then off on honeymoon, we ran out of time and did not get it.
However, as we know, inside every breakdown there is a breakthrough – another leading Irish sports person donated a sporting garment!
On the day we had 54 golfing and 81 sitting down for dinner, we raised €4800 to be divided between St Lukes & the Cancer Society, and the other sports person is Graham McDowell, the golfer who recently won the U.S. Open, and he autographed a golf cap which we presented to a 16 year old lad, who plays off a handicap of 2, for winning our “longest drive” competition!
I wanted to share this with you and let you pass it on for the contribution it may make in showing what’s possible.
Kind Regards,
Mark Quinlan
