Tag: UCD Smurfit

UCD Smurfit Rugby Club Fundraising Dinner

Former Minister Dick Spring Speaking at the Event

Last Friday night, February 7th, saw the Pillar Room in the Rotunda Hospital come alive for the UCD Smurfit Rugby Football Club Fundraising Dinner and Auction. This event was hosted by the organising committee of the Club from the full-time MBA class of 2013/14. Former Minister Dick Spring and Kingsley Aikens, formerly of the Ireland Funds, were special guests at the event and provided insightful and extremely entertaining accounts of their memories and experiences in the Rugby arena. Minister Michael Noonan was also in attendance to support the event along with MBA Alumni and friends of the MBA.

A great night was had by all and valuable funds have been raised for the 34th Annual MBA Rugby World Cup Championship which will take place in Danville VA from April 11th – 13th 2014. A group of our MBA students will aim to defend the title for the 12th time! Watch this space!

Organising Committee
Former Minister Dick Spring (L) & Kingsley Aikens (C-R) with MBA students, Jim Radmore (C-L) & Michael Noonan (R)

Vietnam Culture Night

Let’s remember and be proud of yourself and your ethnic identity. We often feel lost in a complex and large world. However, you will feel consoled if you have a knowledgeable background of your ethnic cultural heritage. It gives you a historical root, a sense of your place in the present and a unique permanent though this world is always changing.

– Le Hong Diem, MSc Strategic Management & Planning, UCD Smurfit

Traditional Costume “Ao dai” Performance

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, though living far away from home, Vietnamese MBA students in Dublin were involved in organizing a successfully special and meaningful event – Vietnam Culture Night. The event’s purpose, along with introducing and promoting Vietnamese culture, was to raise funds to support poor children in mountainous areas of Vietnam through the programme, “Only rice is not enough.” The event attracted more than 400 international friends, expatriates and Vietnamese students in Ireland.

Guests attending the event enjoyed the traditional foods of Vietnam such as Gac sticky rice, spring rolls, salt roasted chicken, Vietnamese salad, and a traditional five fruits tray garnished with apricot, peach blossom and Lunar New Year calligraphy. The entire space of the event was decorated with red and yellow symbolizing “luck” and “prosperity”. International friends were excited to take memorial pictures in Vietnamese Tet space and enthusiastic to participate in quizzes about Tet traditions in Vietnam.

I want to send best wishes to the MBA program staffs and my classmates in the new year!

Chuc mung nam moi!

Happy Lunar New Year 2014!


Hung Nguyen

FTMBA 2014

Vietnam

Coaching to the Finish Line

Coaching provides a safe space for MBA participants to explore challenges that may be causing interference by focusing on personal development in a programme that is by nature competitive and challenging. It allows space for thinking, reflection and exploring more of the emotional intelligence aspect of leadership.  Now in my second year of coaching MBA participants at UCD Smurfit, I have found the participants to be very smart people from a range of countries, backgrounds and industries.

All have a shared ambition to be the best that they can be and to reach their potential. There is a formula in coaching from The Inner Gameby Tim Gallwey which reads:

Performance = (potential – interference)

At the heart of the coaching work that I do is a conversation. This conversation is led by the coachee’s agenda and my primary role is to listen and understand the coachee’s story. That story can include career development, values, patterns in their working life, motivation, managing stress and managing opportunities.

For the coachee, the sessions provide time and space to talk out loud about what is top of mind for them, in other words what is their inner game. We all have an inner game, so exploring aspects of this with a coach allows the coachee to bring into focus what they are thinking about and how they can work on it.

There is always an inner game being played in your mind no matter what outer game you are playing. How you play this game usually makes the difference between success and failure.Tim Gallwey

Working with a coach, they explore reality, look at goals for the short term and longer, explore options for change and agree on actions for the future.

The beauty of the programme is that each coachee has access to three coaching sessions, which allows time for the coaching relationship to develop, for reflection, for actions to take place and be reviewed, and for themes to emerge.

Pamela Fay

As we start 2014 I am looking forward to my coaching sessions in the coming weeks with the MBA participants. I am excited about what actions they have taken since their last coaching session and what new challenges and opportunities we will be working on together over the coming months.

Pamela Fay is a business and executive coach. Pamela has run her own business for ten years and qualified in 2009 as a coach.

Reflecting through Limericks

As a conclusion to the first semester of the MBA, please enjoy this trio of limericks.


Reflections on Semester One

Time flies by so quickly. It’s hard to believe.

Seven modules are done, and now some reprieve.

After many hours of study

With a group or a buddy

Seems like yesterday we first met with Niamh.


New Colleagues and Friends

There once was a guy from the States

In Ireland he made some great mates

At the start of the year

Had a loneliness fear

But now he gives thanks to the Fates.


Ode to Kerrygold*

My friends oft hear when I start to mutter,

“I just really need some of that butter.”

After days good or bad

What can perk up a lad?

The thought gets my heart going aflutter.


With a colour so gold and yellow

My taste buds can’t help but say, “Hello”

I haul out the tub

Give bread a quick rub

And presto, I’m one happy fellow.


I have travelled thousands of miles

To the emeraldest of  isles

And the best thing I’ve found,

I could eat by the pound

Is Kerrygold. It’s always worthwhile.


Anthony Downs

FT MBA 2014

*The author has no affiliation with Kerrygold. He’s just an enthusiastic consumer.