St. Patrick's Day Dinner, 15 March 2018.

Due to circumstances, our original guest speaker, Simon Harris TD, was unable to join us for our St. Patrick's Day Dinner.

We were delighted to be able to secure a star pinch hitter in World Champion Baseball Coach, Brian Farley, who entertained us with his speech on 'the Pursuit of Excellence'.

As usual, the evening begins with a drinks reception from 7pm, followed by dinner from 8pm and there was still a large number of guests chatting until well past 11:30pm.  We had another evening filled with making new connections, great Irish music, some Irish dancing, excellent food and some fabulous spot prizes to take away (and here we would like to thank our generous sponsors, Aer Lingus, Tourism Ireland,  Kappé International, Veolia and the fabulous Castle Durrow.

**Brian Farley is an American-born baseball coach and former player who has been living in The Netherlands for the past 28 years and who has been coaching in different capacities for the National team since 2000 (including going to the Olympics in both Sydney and Beijing as national coach). 

In 2011 as National team coach, Farley led the Dutch to a world championship in baseball which was the first time that a European team has ever won a world championship in baseball and for this Farley was honored with a knighthood and was voted Coach of the Year at the 2011-2012 Sportsgala.  Brian knows how to bring the lessons from the sports field to the world of business because of his years of experience working as a sales manager for Diageo in Europe (working on brands such as Guinness and Red Stripe Beer).

Farley is known as a passionate team coach whose commitment to planning,  execution and results is second to none.  He is an inspirational speaker and gets to the core of what makes people and teams successful with speaking topics include Building Team Values and Beliefs, and Performing under Pressure.  In Brian's words "I’ve always been fascinated about why we make certain choices and what drives these decisions.  Why do some people persevere under pressure while others give up?  My passion lies in my desire to understand the journey towards growth and to help those willing to come out of their comfort zone to achieve their potential, developing a ‘growth mindset’ along the way”.