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| Here
are two stories contributed recently by Monitor readers
in Ireland and New Zealand. |
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Golf pro Christy O'Connor Junior (left) and Mitsubishi
Electric Ireland president Fergus Madigan pitch
the Golf Challenge with competitors Sinead Palmer
and Dermot Short. |
Mitsubishi
Electric Ireland is sponsoring a Nationwide Golf Challenge
to support the 2003 Special Olympics World Summer Games.
The Special Olympics are for persons who have learning disabilities.
They are a program of year-round opportunities to develop
physical fitness, gain self-confidence and experience the
joy of participation.
Ireland will host the 2003 Special Olympics,
the first time the event has taken place outside the United
States. The nation will welcome some 7,000 athletes, 2,000
coaches and 28,000 family members and friends.
Teams from Ireland's 200 foremost golf clubs
will compete in Mitsubishi Electric Ireland's Golf Challenge.
The top four teams, along with the club that raises the
most money for the games, will then compete for the championship
on a premier European course.
"We're honored to support the 2003 Special
Olympics World Summer Games," says Fergus Madigan,
president of Mitsubishi Electric Ireland. "We wish
all the participants happy fund-raising and the best of
Irish luck!" The Special Olympics began in 1968 at
the initiative of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, a sister of John
F. Kennedy, the first U.S. president of Irish descent. |
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Mitsubishi New Zealand's Ron Gibson (second from
right), who played in the first goodwill tournament,
recently participated in the 80th. |
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Meanwhile,
in New Zealand
A
Mitsubishi Corporation subsidiary and Reed Stenhouse Ltd.
occupied offices in the same high-rise building in Auckland.
Two employees bemoaned the lack of interchange between their
companies. They arranged a golf tournament to encourage
personal communication. They invited everyone to participate,
regardless of ability.
Other tournaments followed, and companies throughout
Auckland began to participate. The tournament has grown
into a virtual golf club--a club without a fixed course--with
some 600 members in 11 nations. A good-neighborly initiative
has become a globally neighborly phenomenon. |
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