I’m a ‘Woman of Worth’ - Yippee!

During Louth Enterprise Week, the Drogheda Chamber held the ‘Women of Worth’ Awards celebrating the achievements of business women in the Drogheda & District Area.

You can imagine my surprise when I got a phone call from Marian Caddell, Office Administrator Extraordinaire at the Chamber to congratulate me for making it to the short-list. I didn’t even know that I was nominated!

There were four categories and I was short-listed in the Professional Category along with some very strong local women:

Among the other finalists were Marcella Bannon, Droichead Arts Centre Director and Orlaigh Carmody Duffy of Aerga Productions in the Creative Arts category.

Karen Devine and Marian Caddell celebrating with short-listed WOW Denise Fay and Marcella Bannon

The other finalists, in their respective categories were:

Creative Arts

• Orlaith Carmody-Duffy, Aerga Productions
• Marcella Bannon, Droichead Arts centre
• Els Borghart, Nexus Arts project

Community

• Isabel Sanroma, St. Patrick’s Day Festival
• Anne Tracey, Gary Kelly Cancer Support Centre
• Phil Conyngham, Samba Festival

Entrepreneur

• Laura Armada Buch, Labfitness
• Gemma McGuinness, Jacquis Fashion Boutique
• Carmel Riggs, Essential Magazine
• Gwen Fearon & Orlaith Callaghan, Stockwell Artisan Foods

Night of the Awards

The awards were held in the four star d Hotel and the guest speaker for the night was a woman of worth in her own right, Ms Terry Prone. Terri expressed her support for the WOW initiative in her inspiring speech.

It is not very long ago that women could be sacked from their employment simply because they were women and I have known that experience myself, it is incredibly important to acknowledge and celebrate the successes of women in business and there are some excellent examples to celebrate here tonight.”

Before announcing the winners, Chamber President Patricia Rooney congratulated each and every nominee, saying that the Chamber received an overwhelming number of nominations and the judges had a hard job whittling it down to the finalists.  “The calibre of the women who were nominated was really impressive and the judges reported it was a real challenge to decide on one winner for each category from such a wealth of talented and deserving candidates.”

Even though I didn’t win, I had a great night. It is always good to get nominated and who knows what could happen over the coming year. My sincerest congratulations goes to Sheila Cooney who won in the Professional category and all the other winners on the night.

Photo: Cowley Photography

Irish Businesswomen Show Anything is Possible

Before I sojourned off to Spain, I was a guest of Patricia Rooney, General Manager of Murphy Environmental Hollywood Ltd at the Women Mean Business Conference & Awards at the Shelbourne Hotel.

The theme of the day was ‘Anything is Possible‘, inspired by leading businesswomen JK Rowling who said “Anything’s possible if you’ve got enough nerve” and Oprah Winfrey who said “If you neglect to recharge a battery, it dies. And if you run full speed ahead without stopping for water, you lose momentum to finish the race”.

This theme was carried through the entire day, especially at the networking session prior to lunch. Perhaps it was the sunshine streaming in through the windows, but there was a palpable air of positivity - things are on the rise.

The women that I spoke with were sustaining their businesses and creating opportunities while acknowledging that things aren’t as good as before. There was realism mixed with positivity and it was quite motivating.

Awards Ceremony

After lunch, the awards ceremony kicked off. Patricia Rooney, my host, was nominated for Businesswoman of the Year award. A well deserving nominee, of all the women I know, she has an unlimited supply of energy. The passion she brings to Murphy is obvious to see given the success of the business which she started from scratch and as President of Drogheda Chamber for the past 15 months.

Unfortunately, she didn’t win and the award went to Cathriona Hallan, MD of Microsoft European Operations Centre.

I met up with Veronica Canning, author of Shoeisms who was a finalist in another category, the Accenture WMBig Idea Award. Another deserving nominee, and unfortunately, she didn’t win either.

It got me thinking about awards. It’s always a little bit disappointing when you don’t win. Human nature being what it is - our the competitive spirit compels us to win. However, over 200 people applied for these awards. 15 people got short-listed. That’s a fantastic achievement in itself.

Perhaps award ceremonies should acknowledge the finalists a bit more - at the end of the day, there is only one official winner. Yet those 11 women who didn’t take home an award are winners. They beat 185 other women to be short-listed and recognised for their achievements.

I’m sure that we will see a lot more from the award winners and the short-listed candidates in the future. I’ll certainly be looking forward to reading more about them in the new Handbag-sized Women Mean Business magazine.

Congratulations to all the winners who have motivated the rest of us to believe Anything is Possible.

Click here for more details on the winners and finalists.

IIA Net-Visionary Short-Lists Announced

I turned on Twitter late today as I was deep in Internet marketing work today. Trying to do two days work into one! Don’t you love the bank holidays?!!

The first thing I noticed was the list of short-listed entries for the Net Visionaries. I’m delighted to see some of my favourite net people on the list.

Well done to everyone but in particular to:

• Damien Mulley & Mary Rose Lyons in the Best Business Blogger section. I’ve got you guys on RSS feed.
• Krishna De in the Best Podcast & Social Media Category. Krishna - this means another coffee!!
• My new friend, James Kennedy in the Internet Entrepreneur category for piehole.ie
• Adrian Weckler, John Collins and Niall Kitson in Journalist award

I have voted, have you? Make your voice heard at http://www.iia.ie/net-visionary/vote/

I put forward Derek Hardiman of RocketJobs for an award. Next year, Derek - you’ll be there. You’re a winner in my eyes.