Blackrock Bulletin

Society back on fairways

Twenty four members took part and lowest handicap player Neil McKell headed the scoreboard at the end of the day, claiming the overall prize.

Pierce Murphy beat in-form Damien English, who is this year’s captain to top category one.

Dermot Ahern made an instant hit, having linked up with the society by winning category two, with Michael Smyth runner-up to him.

Ross Timmons took category three, with Tommy Lennon the runner-up in this section.

Traynor Butchers kindly were sponsors of the outing.

The society’s next outing is to Balcarrick golf club in North Dublin on Saturday next, for which there is transport arranged.

The sponsor for the day is Colin Fee’s Maxol Station.

Return of Youth Club warmly welcomed by parents and teenagers

THE resumption of the parish youth club has earned favour with the young teenagers who have joined up, as well as parents.

Evidence of that is that the break taken for the Easter holidays caused disappointment. Despite the fact that the intention is the club will convene during school terms.

Friday night is once again the designated night, with the community hall on Sandy Lane the headquarters for weekly activities.

Activities have been organised to specifically meet the wishes of the members who were asked to supply a list of what they would like to have and do. As it transpired the leadership group fulfilled the wish list that was canvassed from the young members on the night they enrolled, with a noticeboard available to write their choice of activities.

These range from leisure pursuits like basketball, football, ping pong, chess to the availability of a tuck shop, chill out room and place to relax.

The truncated time for the club to re-engage with the school year, now at an advanced stage, provided a settling-in time and allowed the leadership assess and ascertain what the young members wished to do going forward and what worked.

The plan is to arrange further more structured activities. For instance, the leadership is looking at arranging talks over a range of topics from sport to art, technology, mental health in which the members are interested and for guest groups to come in and to provide training. It will also be open to the members to initiate tournaments in various pursuits, and the junior leaders to help in the organisation.

A spokesperson explained that “initially we wanted to get up and running and make sure we had things the kids wanted”.

The spokesperson said key to the smooth functioning of the club was to entice junior leaders “to encourage them to come and help run the club.”

It is an entirely new cohort of members that now are in the club, with those that were involved pre-Covid gone past the age for which it is designed from first to third year students in secondary school.

The option is there for those no longer in that age bracket to get involved, and a couple have returned to play a part in the organisational side and help with the like of running the club shop,

The club is looking for more junior leaders in the transitional year to leaving certificate bracket to augment the leadership group. The club spokesperson pointed out such a role offered the opportunity to gain valuable experience and to build a CV with training available from the recognised youth body.

Over 60 members registered with the club in the first two weeks, and it is still open to boys and girls to join with no ceiling on the number of members, with the fluctuating attendance from week to week.

The club spokesperson said the leadership were happy to have put in place the activities and facilities that the young members wanted, and were also happy with the positive feedback to the resumption of the club from not only the members but their parents.

Currently, they have six junior leaders, and have 18 adult leaders. But ideally they would like more to ensure that the task is not too onerous and not too big of time commitment where leaders might only be required to be in attendance every five or six weeks.

The purpose of the club was to provide a social outlet for the young members to do things they like with their friends. To that end, in expanding the programme they will again be guided by the young teenagers, and will conduct another survey to learn what they would like.

The club has applied for a grant that will facilitate the expansion of the programme to include the arranging of talks and training.

It will also make preparations to take in new members for next year, with the holding of a ‘Taster Night’ for the sixth class pupils in the three local schools, who they will invite along one Friday night to sample what the club has to offer.

Ger’s Lottery results

THERE was no winner/s again of the Geraldines lottery in the latest draw, with the numbers drawn were 6, 17 23 and 29.

Two players, David Lynch and Ann Murtagh, selected three numbers to share the €200 prize. The jackpot is €6,600 this week.

Tidy Towns and Wuxi clean-up

THE alliance that the Tidy Towns group in Haggardstown has forged with the Wuxi pharmaceutical plant saw over 30 volunteers take part in a joint event to mark Earth Week and National Spring Day.

Staff from the plant brought along children as they, for the second year running, took part in a clean-up event with the Tidy Towns that was rounded off with a social gathering in the Fairways Hotel where refreshments were served.

The new neighbours in the parish have shown a strong civic commitment to their environment and been a big support to the new Tidy Towns group. The company sponsored the new seat which forms a centrepiece of the impressive new shrubbery and landmark feature on the green at the top of the Marlbog Road.

The Wuxi contingent paid a visit to the feature during the clean-up, with volunteers tidying up the area during their morning‘s work, which included cleaning and lifting rubbish and cutting grass. Their efforts filled 60 odd bags during the four hours they spent at the task.