Waltzing through the campaign
FINE Gael local election candidate Paul Codd, from Taghmon, who is running in the Rosslare District wins the prize for engaging in the most unusual activities in his spare time.
Paul, a son of the late Cllr Pat Codd is a self-employed welding fabricator by day and in the evenings he teaches jive dancing, calls out the numbers in a weekly bingo session and is a black belt in Lau Gar Kung Fu.
A member of the board of Taghmon Action Group and a keen dancer for the past decade, he leads a country jive, quick step and waltz dancing class on a Wednesday night at 8 p.m. in the TAG Centre.
‘I’ve been dancing in different styles on and off for about 10 years. I went to a jive dancing class with Fran Cullen. I’ve been teaching classes in the centre since last November and they’ve been going down well’, he said.
Last Wednesday morning, Paul gave a well-received dancing demonstration to a women’s group in the Family Resource Centre and expects some new recruits to emerge from it.
His dance students are of varying ages from 18 up to 80. If you would like to join you don’t have to bring a partner along.
On Tuesday nights, Paul calls out the numbers in a weekly bingo session in the TAG centre which the board started last winter.
‘ They used to have bingo in Taghmon Community Centre for many years but the numbers attending declined and it stopped. We decided to start it again’, said Paul.
The Taghmon bingo is very popular, especially as the Snowball amount rises, as it did a fortnight ago when €650 was won. ‘ There was a massive crowd for that.
The numbers go down then for a while until the Snowball mounts up again.’
Paul’s banter experience as a bingo caller ensures that he is not lost for words on the doorsteps where he says he is getting great support while canvassing.