Interview with Mike Doyle

I have posted the interview with Nortel legend Mike Doyle. You can listen at
http://davesilke.podbean.com/

Enjoy
Dave

Interview with Gerry Cahill, former Director of technology

http://davesilke.podbean.com/

Click on this 10 minute interview with Gerry Cahill - hear about Kitty's Kitchen.

Interview with Dave Quane, MD, Nortel Ireland

Click here to listen to a 10minute interview with Dave Quane, current MD of Nortel in Ireland. Dave shares his memories and stories and reflects on his time at Nortel.

http://davesilke.podbean.com/

Media Coverage - Octobe 19th

Our "reunion and Ball" received some fantastic media coverage this week. The City Tribune ran a 2 page feature on Nortel in Galway and our celebration of 35 years in Galway this year.
The article featured interviews with Liam Bluett, Dave Quane, and Pete Kelly. I have attached a copy of the piece for any of you that missed the piece this week.

I'm battling with my conscious at the moment. I have a fantastic story to share but I made a promise that I wouldn't post the details on the blog or in this e-mail. So, I'm going to keep the specific details secret but share a flavour of the story.
I was traveling (in the UK) last week and was checking into a hotel at 8pm last Monday evening. As I approached the reception, the wonderful receptionist smiled immediately after I had given her my name. "I know you" she said. I wondered... How...

for a moment before she explained.

I was dumbstruck when she told me that she was a former employee of Nortel in Galway. She's on our former employee distribution list and has been getting all of the updates. A collegue of her's had been in touch about coming to the Ball and she had been undecided.
Over the past couple of days she has heard Liam's interview and then John Kavanagh's. She then heard some of the old names from her former "factory floor day"….AND…. So, on Sunday of last week, she bought 2 Ryan Air tickets to Shannon, arranged a babysitter, and herself and her husband are coming to the Ball.

That is just fantastic - and it will be fantastic to meet so many of you again in 2 weeks time - I've had so many e-mails and texts and it promises to be a very special occasion.

We now expect to hit (and exceed) the 450 attendee mark at the Ball. Please note that tickets must be bought by next Friday, October 24th. We need to keep this deadline to provide final numbers to the hotel and to complete the table plans. Details on purchasing tickets are below.
For tickets to the charity Ball: E-mail: charity@nortel.com
Phone: +353-91-733888.
Thanks to all
Dave

Great moments - John Kavanagh

Former customer services manager (amongst many other titles) John Kavanagh, spent some time sharing his memories of his 20+ years at Nortel. It's all here - just click to play.

http://boomp3.com/listen/c1qnc60r9_5/john-kavanagh

John somehow forgot to tell us about his "challenges" entering Russia and being captured in no-mans land in Geneva Airport? Your guess is as good as mine but John tells me he will share all at the "Ball".

dave

Memories from Liam Bluett

Liam Bluett, former Finance Director at Nortel Galway, shares some of his memories of his 20+ years with Nortel.

http://boomp3.com/listen/c1qkja8i7_7/liam-bluett

One of the memories that Liam didn't include on this clip was a great story about the Pope's visit to Galway.
It seems the finance and operations team at the time, in 1979, were doing an audit of the factory. The timing coincided with the Pope's mass in Ballybrit. The army and the guards were planning to close off all of Mervue for the mass and that would mean that the audit team would not have access to the factory during that time. That was going to cause some significant problems for the company, so, in ultimate corporate wisdom, one of the North American bosses asked Liam if he could give the Vatican a call to see if the Pope would reschedule his mass so that the team could get access to the factory. Needless to say "Young People of Ireland, I love you" went ahead.

Dave

And the Winner of the VIP Package....

The draw was made today for the former Nortel VIP prize. The winner will receive a free tux rental, overnight accomodation at the Radisson SAS, and a complimenary bottle of champagne.

And the winner is: Kieran Muldoon. Congrats Kieran - if you get in touch with us at charity@nortel.com we will send you on the details of your prize.

Audio recording of past memories - I'm meeting Liam Bluet this week to record some of Liam's past finance and arts festival memories. I will post this onto the facebook web site and also send the link to everyone on this list. In addition, Dave Quane, our current MD, will also be sharing his memories from his 20+ years of Nortel experience.
For those of you who have not yet purchased your tickets, the final date for purchasing tickets is Friday, October 24th. We need final numbers and confirmations at that point so that we can complete the table plans and provide the hotel with numbers.
Here are some more of the former employees (and long standing current ones) who are planning to attend the event:
Liam Bluett, Brian Hagan, Derek Collins, Aideen O'Colmain, Mike Conroy, Tim Hourihan, Austin Madden, Mary Madden, John Kavanagh, Joe O'Connor, Dave Quane, Declan Hanley, Trish Lydon, Alan Murphy, Colm Feeney, Tom O'Donoghue, Gerry Cleary, Anne Heskin, Wally Russel, Tom Waldron, Donal O'Murchu, Garry Kennedy, Ollie Daniels, John Jordan, Eamon Walsh, Brian Power, Conor Killeen, Jean Barrett, Pat Dennigan, Eamonn Hannon, Alan Kenny, Ciara Hartigan, Eimear Schumacher, Eimer Kelly, Pete McNally, Caroline Burke, Kieran Muldoon, and Marie O'Meara.
We also really appreciate our friends at Storm, KPMG, and CSC who have all purchased tables and will be attending with their friends. In total, we expect to welcome over 420 people on the night.