Waterford group rebranding found Irish words worked best

What was Waterford Area Partnership until late September is now Buíon Phort Láirge, the name change reflecting an organisation that has rebuilt and expanded from a crisis situation earlier in the decade.

“We had the launch on September 26. We have been using the name since then, we also have to update our website to reflect it. But as of the 26th we have been going by the new name,” says CEO Liam Quinn. 

The rebranding is part of moving on from the issues that gripped the organisation just a few years ago.

At the time it went to the brink of closure after serious governance and financial issues were identified.

Mr Quinn, who was not himself involved at that time, said that things have moved on significantly since them. 

“Back in 2020 or 2021 there were a few issues. The Council encouraged the Board at the time to step down, there were issues around governance and financial oversight. There was no indication that anyone was doing anything wrong, but maybe things weren’t being done as diligently as a lot of the Government funding departments would like,” he said.

“A new interim board was appointed in March of 2021. A new interim CEO came in at the time from another local development company, just to help with the transition and they set about recruiting a new CEO, which saw me join in January of 2022. A couple of months later a new Chief Financial Officer was appointed. A lot of the board stayed on even though they were only coming in for a few months, four of the ten remain.”

He feels that the organisation is in a healthy state today, that it has expanded its role and is fulfilling its remit. 

“We have enjoyed a good period. We have grown quite a bit, taken on new programmes, we have probably doubled in size in terms of our staffing complement in that period. I think we have probably earned the trust of a lot of the funding departments and agencies that would have been involved with the Partnership down through the years.”

Moving to a new name helps reflect the new energy within the organisation he feels.

“We launched a strategic plan last year, a five year strategic plan, and we felt that in the next phase of our evolution we would look at branding. Initially we were just looking at the logo which hadn’t changed since the organisation was established in 1996. But the more people we spoke to; our staff and stakeholders and others; we found the idea of changing our name was strongly favoured by most. So that’s what we did.”

Those who had been there for the dark days were particularly happy to see the name change. 

“Most of the staff who went through that difficult period have stayed and continue to work and deliver supports on that ground. That cohort wanted a fresh energy and impetus because they could see the Company was going in a new direction and they felt a rebrand and a name change would help that.”

While most of us who have gone through the Irish education system do retain at least a cúpla focal, but ‘buíon’ would be a new term to most.

“Buíon is an old Irish word, which means a band or a group of people coming together to work in partnership. That’s buíon.”

How come the organisation decided to go for an Irish name? 

“Initially we hadn’t planned to, but we were trying to reflect in some way what a local development company does. For most people not in the sector, if you asked them what does Waterford Area Partnership do, most of them wouldn’t know what a local development company does. When I applied for the job I didn’t know. We were looking at combining English words and things, but it just wasn’t right. Then we got thinking about the use of an Irish name. We have a Gaeltacht in Waterford. The more we looked at Irish words, we found many that would reflect what we do. 

“There was an Irish Language Amendment Act a couple of years ago, and there’s a directive about changing company names and logos. What it allowed us to do if choosing a new Irish name, was that we could put the strapline (Supporting People & Communities)  in English. While ‘Buíon’ is a word not familiar to many Irish people let alone non-Irish people we work with, our strapline tries to encapsulate what we do, which is support people and communities.”