Paralympics Ireland

6 | Paralympics Ireland Annual Report | 2019 An Annual Operations document helps us to monitor the progress of the various initiatives within the plan and to maintain the momentum that will steer us through the next two Paralympic Games. Although the global health crisis is a huge obstacle for sport it will also present some opportunities and this will be the case with the implementation of our strategic plan. We will take this opportunity to move the implementation of the plan forward and will set in train the changes that will benefit Paralympic Sport for years to come. Commercial Partners Last year, at the Annual General Meeting, we introduced our new Head of Commercial, Trevor O'Rourke. Trevor has a wealth of experience and that will prove to be very important in the weeks and months ahead. In 2019 we welcomed our newest partner, Circle K, to the Paralympics Ireland family. This company has a fantastic national reach that takes it into every village across the country and gives us a presence in every region. They also introduced a terrific campaign named 'Here for Ireland' that has seen advertising featuring Jordan Lee and Nicole Turner feature at prominent advertising locations nationwide. The campaign is benefitting all of our athletes who have the ability to avail of store credit that is donated by Circle K customers. This is a huge boost to athletes who are being saved the cost of some of those essentials and allows them to concentrate on what is important- performance. During the year we also welcomed new partners to our stable in Crowley Millar who will be our legal advisors and Goosebump who have come on board as our creative agency. Sport Ireland Sport Ireland remain the biggest source of funding for Paralympics Ireland. They provided €700,000 in High Performance funding and a further €400,000 in Core Operations funding. We have been selected as a recipient for Women in Sport funding in partnership with CARA and we look forward to announcing details of that programme when the Health Crisis has passed. Our partnership with Sport Ireland is vital not just from a funding perspective but also provides significant high performance support as we have access to facilities on the National Sports Campus as well as the essential Services of the Sport Ireland. I would like to thank John Tracey, Paul McDermott, Liam Harbison and all of the staff and service providers from Sport Ireland for their assistance and support throughout 2019. World Championship Bronze medallist, Niamh McCarthy Shooter Sean Baldwin

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