NOMINATOR

NOMINEE

• Background and Extent of fundraising undertaken: Marie made contact with the Irish Cancer Society and wanted to host a fundraiser for Action Breast Cancer. Marie had planned to brave the cold Atlantic waters (naked) on June 21st 2009 with 500 other woman and attempt to set a Guinness world record for the largest female skinny dip. Marie explained that she wanted to do a skinny dip for ABC as it was the most relevant to her. Marie took this task of organizing this event to another level; the media attention that came from this event was national and even reaches Britain with BBC news taking an interest.  Marie has embraced the Irish Cancer Society and as a volunteer with no previous dealings with us has made such an impact to the Cancer Society, local community and the participants that took part in this event.

• Distinctiveness of the effort: The Event from start to finish was planned and executed in only 9 weeks. The shear determination that Marie show throughout the whole event was mind blowing, Marie had the buy in of everyone that she spoke to the number of people that came out to support this effort was remarkable.

• Longevity: Marie is a new volunteer to ICS she approached us in late March 2009 to host an event the event was not a typical event that the Irish Cancer Society would have typically seen.

• Innovation: The idea of an all female skinny dip has embraced all women both with cancer and without; feedback from people that took part is phenomena and all have confirmed they will do the dip again, but brings friend this time.

• Leading by example: Marie has taken on the fundraiser solely and has made the event so much more than a fundraiser she has made it a great way for woman to express them self's and share with each other a very hard topic to discuss cancer!