The Special professional Guest speaker for the evening was Adventurer and Entrepreneur, Pat Falvey who through his stories of business and adventures brought an enthusiastic reaction from the audience of students and the general public.

Pat spoke about the needs for dreams, goal and ambitions and that how working together that we have the power to achieve our full potential, not alone in college but in all aspects of life.

Pat professes that students are the gold-mine of the future of our country. Properly harnesses and mentored they are the countries asset.

Vocational Educational Commitee choose Pat Falvey teambuilding for their organisations away day.

33 Administration staff from the VEC took part in a team away day in Jury’s Hotel Western Road Cork on. This was facilitated by Pat Falvey staff headed up by Tony Nation, Ian O'Neill, Darren Healy and Alan Walsh. First up was a topic on self defence which covered, definition, threat, awareness, attack, values and conflict, what makes a victim, stages of attack as well as all above participants were given practical demonstrations on self protection.

The second half of the morning was given over to team games with each game having a message to give to members of the staff. This covered the areas of communication, active listening, team participation, problem solving and setting goals. This was a highly active day with learning for all through fun and interaction.

More details of our teambuilding and company/organisation away days in our corporate services section,

View some photos from the day in our gallery

Vocational Educational Commitee choose Pat Falvey teambuilding for their organisations away day.

33 Administration staff from the VEC took part in a team away day in Jury’s Hotel Western Road Cork on. This was facilitated by Pat Falvey staff headed up by Tony Nation, Ian O'Neill, Darren Healy and Alan Walsh. First up was a topic on self defence which covered, definition, threat, awareness, attack, values and conflict, what makes a victim, stages of attack as well as all above participants were given practical demonstrations on self protection.

The second half of the morning was given over to team games with each game having a message to give to members of the staff. This covered the areas of communication, active listening, team participation, problem solving and setting goals. This was a highly active day with learning for all through fun and interaction.

More details of our teambuilding and company/organisation away days in our corporate services section,

View some photos from the day in our gallery

Recession or pre-boom, depends on your attitude.

We are now living in tough times and we need to be positive to succeed, if we are not we will fail in achieving our goals.

I believe for people to move forward we have to accept the challenges that now face us. Yes, things are tough and for some this has been one of the hardest times in their lives. But unless we change from the doom and gloom that has beset our country, our people will not emerge from the gloom.

Too many people have a negative outlook to life and unless we can refocus to see the light at the end of the tunnel, we face a disastrous outcome.

Let’s look to the future with a positive attitude and make opportunities. Let’s change our negative thoughts to the positive ones. We are where we are on planet earth and the most important attribute to a successful future is to accept our current situation. If need be, we should take our current situation to the worst case scenario and rebuild from that point. This is what I had to do in 1986 when I went broke and lost everything. My home was in the process of been repossessed; my companies faced liquidation and my personal life was in ruin. From the ashes of all of this and a change of attitude I fought back to live to fight another day. Opportunities arose from the height of a world depression. I then chose to see opportunity from my demise and the position I found myself in. I chose to see my glass as half full instead of half empty.

Like now I believe we are no longer in a recession, we are in a pre-boom period (how long we remain there I’m not sure). The future looks bright and by having a positive attitude we will prevail. As my grandmother drummed into me as a child “If you think you can you will, If you think you can’t you won’t.”

We are living in very challenging times, we would be fools to think otherwise. Economies are shifting their focus, businesses are reconfiguring and all of us have to be open to the challenge of change. This uncertainty dominates most people’s thoughts and for most they fear failure and the unknown.

But we have to be positive, more so then ever now it is the time to stand up and be counted as individuals and to be self lead. To succeed we need to change the country’s attitude, as Obama said “is feidir linn”. Yes we can. We need to be motivated to self leadership, team leadership, community leadership, company leadership and political leadership and to believe we will succeed.

For this month I will leave you with a verse that was given to me by my mother when I despaired most in my own life, when I could not see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was in 1986 and I had lost everything. My self esteem, my confidence and self belief were at an all time low. I rebuilt my life from the ashes to go on and succeed in making all my dreams a reality. I have used the philosophy behind the verse of the following poem. I learnt that to fail is a journey to succeed if we learn from mistakes and never give up.

Don’t Quit

When thing’s go wrong as they sometimes will.

When the road your trudging seems all uphill.

When funds are low and debts are high.

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.

When care is pressing you down a bit.

Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.

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Life is queer with its twist and turns.

As everyone of us sometimes learns.

And many a failure turns about.

When they might have won if they stuck it out:

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow-

You may succeed with another blow.

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Success is failure turned inside out-

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,

And you never can tell how close you are.

It may be near when it seems so far:

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit.

It’s when time go tough that you must not Quit.

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There have been many occasions I know in my own life where I would have failed if I had given up but I persisted even though I thought at times I had failed.

So be positive, stay focused, rely on self-leadership and be the best that you can be and you will succeed.

With that in mind I just want to wish you all the best in this “pre-boom period”. We now have more budding young entrepreneurs in the making then at any time in our past.

Pat Falvey

Entrepreneur – Speaker – Adventurer

Pat Falvey is Ireland’s leading business, inspirational and motivational speakers and presenters.

Let us help you in your organization to inspire your company, team’s and individuals to look to the future in a positive way. Through our presentations and courses.

Pat Falvey Boot Camps Corporate and educational division.

Over the last 12 months, we have now surpassed all our expectation for our Pat Falvey boot camp division and we have worked with over 4000  people in our boot camps for the 2010/2011 season. This has been an amazing success which has been headed up by director of operations Tony Nation and our trainers. Our courses have captured the imagination of those taking part. These boot camps are an ideal fun day out for your team.

Why not try Pat Falvey's BOOT CAMP. We at Pat Falvey school of adventure have designed a programme for getting the best from your team. If you are preparing for a major event or just want to have some fun in the outdoors we have that special day. click here

Pat recently featured on Radio Kerry's popular Saturday Supplement with Frank Lewis. The show had many of Pats friends and family on the phone as guests. Frank discusses many topics with Pat including the North Pole expedition, coming to Kerry many years ago and his active role with promoting education while running a travel and training company. Thanks to Mary in Franks office and Radio Kerry for sending on the recordings. You can also find our full databse of podcasts in our gallery page.

Below is a selection of podcasts from the show:

Related links

Frank Lewis runs a PR company and Art Gallery in Killarney. Frank also runs a weekly show with Radio Kerry.

Radio Kerry was voted ppi local station andwas alos awarded a ppi award for a programme featuring Pat following his South Pole expedition, titled 'Ask the Explorer'

More Podcasts see our gallery

Pat Falvey launches "Get Up And Go" diary in Sligo on the 18th November

A new diary for 2011 was launched by Pat in Sligo at the Yeats memorial building.

Pat Falvey presented a motivation presentation to a packed house in Sligo for the launch of next years Get Up And Go diary. Pats presentation focused on positive attitude and the need for everyone to take responsibility for themselves and the importance of self leadership in these pressured times.

Commenting that the get up and go diary is a great  arsenal to have  on a day to day basic  to keep you focused on the day to day living. There is many great gems of wisdom and inspiration of quotes and verses on every page.

The get up and go series is now 8 years on the go and have influence thinking in  100000's of people. It success has stemmed by it simplicity of spreading positive thoughts in your life on a daily basis.

The collection of verses, poems, quotes and verses have been compiles by Glenda Devlin and published by Brendan Sands and Eileen Forrestal  from Get Up and Go Publications in Sligo.

Further information can be got from www.getupandgodiary.com

A truly must have for the coming year.

The launch of Awareness cards with help telephone numbers was held at the Rochestown Park Hotel in Cork on the 17th November.

Pat Falvey Patron of Suicide Aware who was also a guest speaker at the event thanked all of those who give of their time and effort in the support of this cause.

Pat spoke about the need of us as a community coming together to help others and  how  Suicide and depression is now one of our greatest health problems and one that has for far to long been brushed under the carpet. Yet there is not one person in the country that does not know someone who is suffering from depression or someone who have taken their lives over the past 15 year.

This event was attended by many sports and high profile Irish people giving their support for a progressive program of fundraising to help fight a plague of raising depression and suicide in Ireland.

Munster Rugby endorsement:

The evening was also the launch of the Munster Rugby nomination of Cork cancer aware as one of their three charities for next year. The Munster Rugby was represented by Garret Fitzgerald and Irish player Mick O Driscoll who applauded the work done by the organisation in showing initiative in the importance of having people trained to help those in need of advice and help in this area.

( CSR Plan) Garret and Mick spoke about how Munster Rugby were honoured to have selected Suicide Aware as one of their three nominated charities for 2011-2012, as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility Plan.

Crime Corespondent/ Author

Paul William the highly successful crime writer and author  was the guest speaker and formally launched the initiative. He took a really hard stand on the influence of drugs on the ever increasing problem and of the crime lords here in Ireland that without due consideration of the damage they cause in pursuance of making money out of the misery of others. He branded them as scum bags of our society and that they should be caught and the keys thrown away for the misery and violence they bring to bear here in Ireland.

Drugs are a major contributor to depression and suicide and Paul as guest speaker gave a great insight to the life of the drug lords and their violent ways.

Host for the night was radio presenter and pr consultant Mick Mulcathy.

Other speakers on the night were Ian Delahunty who spoke of personal experience of the tragedy of families when a loved one commits suicide. He emotionally talk about how his father took his own life and the effects it had on him and the family.

The night was brought to a close by founding member Pat Beahan thanking everyone for their support and help.

Further information of fundraising events and Suicide aware mission and vision can be found on www.suicideaware.ie or contact Pat Beahan on 087 9454202

Pat Falvey was a guest speaker at the recent Invest Ireland Forum which was hosted by DCU Ryan Academy and Arizona State University.  His presentation was on the spirit of adventure, entrepreneurship and success in a challenging changing world. It was colourful, entertaining and brought home the attributes needed to succeed in a changing world.

The forum was a joint collaboration bringing together of Venture Capitalist,  Angle Investors and the top companies in Ireland.

Mary Horan Chief Executive of the DCU Ryan Academy spoke about the fact that she would hope that this was just the first of Invest Ireland forum and thanked in particular the American Investors for showing such great interest in investing in Ireland.

The event was hugely successful for both investors and participating companies.

After the event Pat said "Ireland is still alive with amazing ideas with top class mangers and entrepreneurs that will ensure our country as one of the major places for investment by investors from throughout the world."

Later that day, Pat flew off to Nepal to lead a group of Irish celebrities raise money for the street children of Calcutta for the Irish HOPE Foundation.

At Pat Falvey army boot camp we have put a number of teams through this rigerous weekend training program specially designed to help in the areas of communication, focus, attention to details, planning and following through on objectives set.

Bear Island:

This weekend our Island boot camp was help on Bear Island and Highfield rugby club went through their paces on last weekend 17 to 19 September.

outside comfort zone:

They were met by the instructors at 19:00 hrs on Friday night. No sooner had they disembarked they were made to run 4km with bag in hand to the camp. There they were given their bed in the tent. First on the agenda was night navigation around the island. They returned to a welcomed cup of soup and sandwich. The team went through the briefing for the weekend. Then retired to try and sleep for the night.

Up at 05.00 given map and coordinates they had to search out their food for breakfast. So were lucky others were not but everyone shared what they had found. After all were fed it was down to business. Each was given 25kg packs and made run the 5km run to the first tower. When they got there they thought they had finished but this was not to be, they had to run to the other tower as well. Next evaluation was the water confidence training instruction. This was to build up there confidence in tough and hostile environment. After this was the assault course, stretcher run, and finished up with some close quarter combat.

Dinner was bush craft style with Rabbit, Pigeon, and Deer on the menu. All had to be skinned, butchered and cooked by the team. After dinner they did more navigation and finished with some field pt. Lights out 24.00 were they tired.

Up Sunday morning at 08.00 for 8km run with 25kg sandbags to White cross. There they took part in a debriefing and self evaluation on the weekend. After this there were then ran back down to camp to a surprise full Irish Breakfast. The camp finished with a march back to the ferry at 12.00.

“It was agreed by all that if they fail in their goal the would be back and it would be tougher”

Objectives for the weekend were, Improve Communication, Discipline, Fitness, Teamwork, Self belief.

Terry Healy Boot Camp faciliator/  Instructor.

Pat Falvey boot camp division