Tidy towns Newsletter Clonmellon Autumn / Winter Edition 2020
During autumn /winter we carried on with our work in the village and all approach roads while observing the government guidelines on covid-19. Everything changed in the way we greeted each other, how we visited our parents, sons, daughters grandchildren, people in hospitals, nursing homes, and so on. Now that we have potential vaccines to help deal with this virus we can hope that all the government restrictions can be done away within time. We have been working on some projects over the last couple of months and entered our community garden into the pride of place for the first time. We did some fundraising we had a draw for a weekend away for a family of 4 in the lovely Lough Eske Castle in Donegal; this was
sponsored by Love Irish Tours. This was the first time we did a raffle to raise money to help with our projects and to buy new equipment.
Dedication to our Frontline, Essential, and Volunteers Workers.
A couple of months ago we started a project for a dedication to all our frontline essential and volunteers workers who have served our country so well during this pandemic ( COVID 19 ) this is now finished. To mark this we had a small dedication on Sunday 13th December with a few guests attending, TD Johnny Guirke Sinn Fein, Cllr Frank McDermott Fine Gael, members of the Garda Siochana, Air Corps, representations from Nursing homes, hospitals, bus drivers. We would like to thank Garda Siochana for their help with traffic management on the day.
A lot of work went into this and members of our community gave their time and skills to make this happen. First we would like to thank Westmeath County Council Planning Department for given their permission to build this flower bed and to put up this plaque. We would like to thank the following for their time and effort with this project, John Sheri
dan who spent a lot of hours collecting and transporting all the field stone. Fergus Corrigan who built it and what a great job he did, John Farley for doing the plastering. Theresa McCoy from Drumcree who made this beautiful slate plaque and Catherine Wilson who made this beautiful piece of art which represents all frontline workers. As a community we did well, we used our time, energy and talent to show our appreciation for our frontline workers who to this day still put their own health at risk by being there for all our communities.
FUNDRAISING:
As you know tidy towns does a lot of fundraising and over the last 4 years, your support has been greatly appreciated. We now have 4 fundraising events that we do, Irish Tea Afternoon, Scenes of Killua Castle Calendar, Gospel Choir Concert, and Fundraising Raffle all of these are very well supported by our community. Because of the Covid -19 restrictions we held two of the above the raffle for a weekend away in Lough Eske Castle in Donegal and our Calendars between the 2 we raised enough money to buy a new ride-on lawnmower, we would like to thank our two sponsors Love Irish Tours and Lorena and Allen Krause of Killua Castle.
PRIDE OF PLACE:
We entered our community garden into the IPB Pride of Place in association with Co-Operation Ireland. This was a first for us and it was a great achievement to be representing our county in this competition. Because of Covid – 19 restrictions, the awards ceremony was a virtual award although we did not win it was a great achievement to be nominated. I would like to thank Margaret Egan for all her help with our entry. Our garden has grown over the last 18 months; we now have 10-12 people who have taken plots, it’s a great place to meet and have a chat while you attend your veg and plants. We have some plots so if you would like to take one and have a place where you can come and meet for a chat bit of crack or just to have a bit of time for yourself then drop overall are welcome contact us on facebook or email us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
HOMELESSNESS:
There were 8,737 people homeless in the week of the 19th – 25th of October 2020 across Ireland. This figure includes adults and children. The number of homeless families has increased by 232% since July 2014 when the monthly figures started being published. Over Christmas Clonmellon Tidytowns received some care packs and small food hampers from Westmeath Community Development to distribute around our community. We gave some to the Clonmellon Active retirement and I would like to thank Marie Henry for her help. We also contacted Delvin Friendship Club
and with the help of Patricia she distributed some care packs and food hampers. We went to Dublin to give some of the food hampers to the Capuchin Day Centre for homeless people. I would like to thank Thomas Henry for helping me on the day and a big thank you to Margaret Egan for all her help and to the Civil Defence for their help with the delivery of these packs.
GENERAL NEWS:
This “ Hedge Maze “ was planted in spring 2020 by Clonmellon Tidy Towns with the support of Westmeath County Council through the community environment action fund. This is something that when it grows will be a place where parents can come with their children to have a bit of fun. Over the years our playground had a lot of vandalism from broken equipment to been set on fire, so let’s hope that all the efforts gone into getting it refurbished will be appreciated, again a big thank you to Westmeath County Council for their commitment to providing our community with this amenity for all our young children to enjoy. During the autumn we had a new business ( Barber ) open in our market square this is great to see as the market square committee are always trying to bring new business to the area let’s hope that they can fill all the vacant premises over the next year. We did a cleanup down at the kells road where all the signs are, we put in some stones and replanted this area when these plants are grown it should be nice and colourful. After years of neglect the Clonmellon Arms got a painting and tidy towns sponsored a mural to be done and as you can see (Simon) did a great job.
Endeavour Award 2020.
We won the tidy towns endeavour award and this was a great achievement for us. An award like this gives recognition for all the work that we have done over the last 2-3 years, so to all our volunteers please keep up the great work and you are all very much appreciated, this is brought home when you have people who are passing through and stop and comment on how well our village looks.
As we reported last year we were 1 point short for a best-improved village this is the goal for this year to win this would be a big achievement, small steps at a time and the big goal is to win this competition, we can achieve this with more people taken pride in where they live and to give a bit of your time 1 hour is all it takes so why not take a look around and see what you can do for yourself and our village.
On behalf of the Committee
Secretary John Wilson.
