Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards inspires Midlands businesses at Cranfield Olympic breakfast
As we enter the last leg in the run up to the Olympics, leading Coventry business recovery specialists Cranfield held an Olympic event of their own last week when one guest speaker, Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, delighted the audience with his inspirational story about representing the UK in the Calgary Olympics in 1988.
As a company that has been at the heart of the business community for the past ten years, and renowned for their lively business networking meetings and events, Cranfield used the breakfast meeting as an opportunity to showcase the support it has given for the London Olympics 2012 by sponsoring Olympic hopeful Katrina Wootton, and becoming the first Gold Patron for the Cultural Olympiad project: Godiva Awakes.
For the past two years Cranfield have been sponsoring Katrina Wootton, an athlete who is in the final stages of her journey in attempting to qualify for the London games in less than two months. Katrina warmed up the morning with an update of her progress following a recent injury, and how she is overcoming this to stay in the race.
Other inspirational speakers at the event were David Moorcroft OBE and Jane Hytch, from Imagineer Productions, the company behind Godiva Awakes. David, who is three times Olympic contender and world record holder in middle distance and long distance running, gave a passionate speech about the significance of the Olympics coming to the UK and in particular how the involvement of Coventry as a host city will impact on local businesses. Jane Hytch, founder and co-director of Imagineer Productions and creator of the Godiva Awakes, talked about the project which promises to put Coventry on the map with the procession of an animated six metre high Lady Godiva marionette puppet. Godiva Awakes will be taking a seven day trip down to London powered by 100 cyclists and accompanied by a carnival of dancers and performers. Cranfield are proud to be the first Gold Patron of the project, and especially what this means for the Midlands businesses involved in the project, and which represent the key industry sectors in the region.
Renowned Eddie ‘The Eagle’ Edwards, famous for being the UK’s only Olympic ski jumper, rounded the morning off with an inspirational talk on his personal journey to the Olympics and the challenges and obstacles he had to overcome to follow his dream. The legendary ski jumper told of how he ate scraps out of bins and slept in a high security Finnish psychiatric hospital due to lack of funding and support in his training for the 1988 Winter Olympics. Eddie was highly entertaining and had the audience laughing out loud over his ski-jumping antics, and at one point leapt onto a chair to demonstrate his ski-ing prowess and the positions he had to adopt in order to leap off a 90 metre high ski-jump. However, despite the comedy, Eddie’s message was a serious and positive one to businesses: “Follow your dream, and stay focused on your goals no matter what obstacles are put in your way.”
A running theme of the presentation was that success can be achieved with perseverance, determination, and strategy, which is the message that Cranfield regularly instils into local businesses through their wealth of knowledge and expertise.
Tony Mitchell, managing director of Cranfield Business Recovery said: “We are excited by the opportunities that 2012 brings to Coventry and Warwickshire as a region and to its businesses. We see the Olympic fever an opportunity to bring pride back to our city. Cranfield are proud to be supporting a potential Olympic athlete and also a remarkable public art project that has amazing vision. We’re delighted that the breakfast meeting was highly successful and received very positive feedback from attendees who were inspired by the presentations.”
Tony Mitchell, Cranfield Business Recovery on tel: 024 7655 3700, email: tony.mitchell@cranfieldbusinessrecovery.co.uk.
Denise Taylor, Bridge PR & Media Services on tel: 024 76 520025, email: denise@bridgepr.co.uk
Cranfield Business Recovery is a firm of insolvency practitioners which employs 16 staff in its Coventry office. At present they are the number one insolvency practice in Coventry. It was set up in November 2001 to offer a professional service to people with corporate, business or personal financial problems and to work closely with professional advisers to assist their clients. The firm is led by licensed insolvency practitioner, Tony Mitchell. It aims to offer a bespoke service in a friendly environment in circumstances that are often difficult and stressful.
