Thank you Diabetes Community for your support!

The Irish Diabetes Community has been so supportive of this event and we are truly appreciative and thankful for it.

I had lots of queries about Thrive-abetes after last week's post and lots of excitement around the confirmation of Helena Farrell as our third speaker.

So, in an effort to address further queries and make information easier to find I have rearranged some of this blogs pages. Namely on the right hand side of the page a list of pages, including Conference Speakers and a draft of our conference programme.

We are still working on finding our perfect venue with one more to view. But myself & Rebecca are extremely eager to get this item put to bed.

We also have a raffle planned to raise our funding shortfall of €2,500 with a SIGNED 2014 Six Nations Ireland rugby shirt on offer, which was very generously donated by Davina Lyon and John O'Reilly from Diabetes T1 Ireland. Plus, two weekends away to give away kindly donated by Maura Tierney from Friar's Lodge Guest House in Kinsale, Co. Cork (I could actually use one of those right now;-)

Once our raffle license arrives we will announce details on how you can buy raffle tickets and we will also be asking for volunteer ticket sellers. Five hundred tickets seems like a big number but many hands should make light work of it!

Our 3rd Conference speaker has confirmed

We have our third speaker confirmed for Thrive-abetes; Thrive with Type 1 Diabetes Conference. 

Drum roll please!!!! Helena Farrell from Diabetes Insight will discuss Diabetes Burnout with our group of adults with type 1 Diabetes. 

Helena Farrell is originally from Charleville, Co. Cork, but now is married and lives in Bandon Co. Cork. She graduated as a registered general nurse from Cork University Hospital in January 2000, where she began her working life as a staff nurse in a general medical ward in the CUH, which specialised in diabetes.

During her time on this ward, Helena gained many qualifications in lifestyle management such as nutritional therapy, addiction studies, psychotherapy to name a few. After five years on the Diabetes ward she transferred to the Diabetes Day Care Centre in the CUH where she worked as a Nurse Educator, gaining experience on the many aspects of diabetes education.

In September 2006, Helena left the CUH after ten years, to take a career break. But not for long, as during this time she was approached by Dr. Sheila O’Sullivan, Consultant Physician, to establish a private diabetes service in Shanakiel Hospital, Cork, which has gone from strength to strength and is now independently based from the Cork Health & Lifestyle Centre, Blackrock, Cork and is known as Diabetes Insight.

Diabetes Insight provides a number of services in many different areas such as Dietary Planning for Type 1 & 2 Diabetes and Psychological Supports using Life Coaching and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

For further information on Diabetes Insight's services please click here

Thrive-abetes Progress; February

As we move forward into March, Thrive-abetes look set to be a sure thing.

iCrowdfund.ie raised a whopping €930! Congratulations to everyone who helped by posted on social media and most of all donated.

A special thank you to One Direct Insurance, Ailbe's Pump Pouches, Insulcheck and Members First Credit Union for their generous contributions.

We have 7 Confirmed exhibitors and are looking to fill only three more spaces.

Our shortfall in our funding commitment has been reduced to €2,000. Yaaayyy!!!

The hunt for venue possibilities is ON and will announce those details next month.

We are getting ready to Thrive with Type 1 Diabetes at Thrive-abetes!