BLACKROCK BULLETIN
News from around Blackrock and Haggardstown
Gers walking for health
THE Geraldines are putting their support behind the Get Ireland walking initiative and are engaging again this year with Operation Transformation in conjunction with the popular RTE television show.
Starting last week the club are opening up their facilities on a Tuesday night between 7 and 8pm to allow those who wish to walk and gain healthy exercise and improve fitness to do so in the comfort and safety of McGeough Park.
The club floodlights will be switched on and apart from the obvious benefits to health, participants will also be afforded the opportunity to meet up with and make friends. All are invited to pop into the clubrooms for a hot drink and a chat after exercising.
There was a good turn out despite the cold and wet on the first night. The programme will extend over six weeks. Everyone is welcomed with all asked to bring along a torch.
New draft Village Plan
THE Tidy Towns have been presented with a new draft development plan for the village as they strive to maintain and hopefully improve Blackrock’s position as the country’s tidiest small town .
The plan has been prepared and devised by a consultant Billy Flynn whose advice and guidance can especially be valuable since he acts as a judge in the national Tidy Towns competition.
The local committee is to examine the proposals contained in the draft and is expected to adopt the plan at their next meeting which is scheduled for February 2.
The plan will be spread over three years, with the different action points to be implemented on a phased time scale in the short, medium and longer term.
This will be the fourth such three year plan drawn up on behalf of the Committee, and has played a key part in the success that the village has achieved in the national competition.
The Committee stresses the prime reason for making improvements is for the community, and the bonus is the recognition achieved in the Tidy Towns competition.
Cake Sale for St Fursey’s NS
The annual cake and Christmas fair run by the Parents Association for Saint Fursey’s School was once again well supported and raised valuable funds.
The Parents Association took on last year with helping to provide chrome books for the school, which were procured and in sufficient numbers to use in all classes even the largest in the school.
The organisers brought forward the date of the Cake Sale this year to the end of November to avoid a clash with other activities in the school.
Encouragingly the support was on the same high level as in other years, in terms of providing items and baking for the event, and on the day the home produce, especially , was all snapped up and the customary raffle was also well supported.
The funds will help to defray the cost of the chrome books.
The Parents Committee are looking at organising a fund raising event in the next while.
New Stadium house draw
A chance to win a house in Blackrock or Drogheda is being offered to Gaels and friends of the sport in the county as Louth County Board push ahead with plans to provide a new county stadium.
Two houses are being offered as star prizes in a draw to raise funds for the project.
The Geraldines club are fully behind the venture and see it as an exciting opportunity for Louth GAA to finally put in place a modern facility that is fit for purpose in respect of hosting inter county matches and club championship fixtures.
Tickets are €100 each and are available from any club committee member or from Haggardstown Garden Centre.
The draw is being run to help build a 14,000 capacity GAA stadium for the county on the Inner Relief Road in Dundalk.
Gers club are asking people in the parish to support the initiative which will have significant long term benefits for the whole North East region.
300 trees shredded
CLOSE on 300 trees were disposed of providing three lorry loads of mulch for the local park and helped significantly reduce the village’s carbon footprint.
This was a result of the Tidy Town’s now annual initiative to provide a free after Christmas shredding service in partnership with locally owned company Pelican Promotions.
The company has provided invaluable help, and simply the service could not be run without the collection facility that it provides, arranging to pick up trees and bringing them to the shredding point at the community centre.
This is the third year that the Tidy Town has organised the event, and each year the numbers availing of the service has increased with a new record set for trees recycled, surpassing considerably last year’s figure of 241.
The collection service is spread over a three mile radius from the community centre, and trees were taken from as far as Dundalk, Knockbridge and Dromiskin.
Individuals also brought trees along from their homes. The total number recycled since the start up of the service stands now at just under 1000, with the aggregate figure last year returned to the land 703, and spared from going to landfill.
Jackpot up to €13, 600
THE jackpot is now E13, 600 in the Geraldines lottery with no winner this week with the numbers drawn: 3, 5, 11 and 20.
However, three players picked three of the four numbers to share the E200 prize.
They were: Murray Family, Cloonevan, Clermont; Paul and Tim Hyland, Chapel Road, Haggardstown and Eimear Boyle c/o Diarmuid McAdam.