With key note speakers such as world renowned implant dentist Ashok Sethi, Graham Stokes, Fazeela Khan-Osborne, ex rugby international player Simon Hill, business coach Pree Panchmatia and local contributions from NLP authority Brid Hendron and Trevor McNulty of Survival-linx. It proved a major success, with dentists and their teams attending from all over Ireland and the UK. The weekend climaxed with a charity ball, at which 250 attendees raised a great deal of money for the chosen charities, namely the Children’s Heartbeat Trust and Horizon’s West, the new children’s hospice currently under construction in Co Fermanagh. The hospice is only the second of its kind to provide respite for life-limited children and their families.
A profound effort was put in by all the members of the Belmore Dental team, owned by Sinead McEnhill, in an effort to raise sponsorship for the event. This took the form of donations from dental supply companies, who set up a trade show concurrently with the lecture schedule over the two day period. Local businesses and business friends proved to be superbly generous with donations and auction items. All the hard work paid off with the successful auction raising yet more thousands of pounds.
‘The whole event proved to be a mammoth task logistically. We had to organise the conference including marketing the event, organising delegate registration, accommodation and subsistence. The lecturers very kindly provided their time and expertise free of charge in the name of a good cause. I can’t thank them enough.’ said Sinead.
Sinead and her brothers Joe and Rory, who run a referral oral surgery and implant practice in Enniskillen, initially hatched the idea for the fundraiser last year following a worrying health period for Sinead’s eight year old son. He received treatment at the Freeman Hospital Cardiac Unit, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which fortunately was a complete success.
In conjunction with the June event, five of the Belmore Dental Team decided to run the Paris marathon to raise money for the same worthy causes. ‘It has been an amazing year, with a lot of us achieving personal success with the marathon achievement. However, this pales in comparison to the Lakeland Dental Symposium which saw so many people, dental and otherwise, support an event that had previously never been attempted in such a format in Ireland. The final count is as yet not in, although we are at £55,000 at the moment. We are continuing at practice level to raise money for the causes with another draw due to take place at the end of July.’