Ennis

A united approach to promoting Ennis as a tourist destination was launched at Glór this week as the Visit Ennis brochure for 2012 was unveiled.The multi-agency initiative is one of many projects being undertaken aimed at drawing visitors and tourists to Ennis.Mayor of Ennis, Councillor Michael Guilfoyle, joined interests from the tourism, hospitality, leisure, local government, retail and services sectors for the launch.Spearheaded by Ennis Town Council, Shannon Development and Ennis Chamber of Commerce and supported by businesses throughout the town, the brochure forms part of the Promote Ennis strategy to profile the town and county to visitors and tourists locally, nationally and internationally.  The launch also featured an announcement by Promote Ennis of a series of other projects being undertaken, namely the Visit Ennis website www.visitennis.ie, the Street Ambassador Programme and the Purple Flag Initiative.Mayor Guilfoyle noted that the new brochure is a much more detailed and comprehensive publication that anything produced for Ennis in the past. “While the …

With the retail trade being one of the sectors that has been hit hardest by the downturn in the economy, ACIST Skillnet and Ennis Chamber are providing a workshop series entitled Boost the Bottom Line – A Profit Margin Workshop Series. The series will take place on four consecutive Wednesdays in May from 6.30pm-9.30pm in the Temple Gate Hotel. The aim of the workshop series is to assist business owner/managers to protect and increase profit margins and to create awareness of areas that profit margins may be lost.  The workshop series will cover profit margins within a business that has employees, products and a premises such as any form of retail business. However, many of the principles of profit margin will apply to all businesses.  The series is targeted at owner/managers, supervisors and decision makers within a business.The first workshop will take place on Wednesday, May 9 on the subject of increasing sales.  On Wednesday, May 16, the workshop will …

THE inspirational story of one Barefield man’s successful attempt to become the first to complete a 10km dive without surfacing has been turned into a book.Record-breaking scuba diver Christy Healy set the record late last year with his second attempt at the dive in Lough Derg. The record was confirmed by Guinness World Records and the money raised from the dive went to the Share a Dream Foundation.Christy is now hoping the launch of the new book The 10K Record will raise even more funds for the charity, which makes dreams come true for sick children all over Ireland.  Christy saw first-hand the amazing work of the Share a Dream Foundation when his son Stephen was diagnosed with non-hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2010. One of Stephen’s regular visitors was Christy’s cousin, Jonathan Mangan, a volunteer with Share a Dream, who got the teenager involved in helping to design the charity’s ‘dream machine’.Stephen has since been given the all-clear and the record …

  A TANNING salon in Ennis is bringing colour to the town in more ways than one after becoming the location for an Artisan Pop-up Shop, the first project to be rolled out under the Ennis Access to Spaces Initiative (EASI).Co-ordinated by Ennis Town Council, Clare County Council and Ennis Chamber, the unique scheme aims to revitalise Ennis town centre by facilitating the use of unoccupied spaces for commercial, creative and community use.Empty and underutilised space in Sunkiss in Market Street has been transformed into a bijou pop-up space highlighting work by some of Clare’s very best craftworkers and artists, including textile artist Steph Gahan, ceramicist, Helen Griffin, and contemporary furniture maker, John Hogan.The display will be officially opened by Councillor Michael Guilfoyle, Mayor of Ennis, this Saturday at 12 noon. County arts officer, Siobhán Mulcahy complimented the initiators of the project, Steph Gahan and Sunkiss owners Siobhán Ní Chofaigh and Elizabeth Nolan, “for their foresight in undertaking the initiative …

FOURTEEN-year-old Nicole Norton, the Barefield girl whose dream came true with the help of Share a Dream last week, “had a ball” on her girlie day out according to her mother Ann.As detailed in last week’s Clare Champion, Nicole, who has cerebral palsy and is visually impaired, got to spend last Friday being pampered and preened. Nicole’s dream day culminated with her taking the stage as an honorary Rose of Clare.“It was absolutely fantastic,” said Ann. “From the very first moment when the limo arrived to pick her up, it was amazing. She had a garda escort to Limerick and they gave her a garda hat to wear. Everybody was just so good to her and she got some amazing clothes. And when we went to the photography studio, the photographs were fantastic. It was great for her to be able to switch off from it all for the day. And the Roses were brilliant. When Orla McDonagh was announced …

With the retail trade being one of the sectors that has been hit hardest by the downturn in the economy, ACIST Skillnet and Ennis Chamber are providing a workshop series entitled Boost the Bottom Line – A Profit Margin Workshop Series. The series will take place on four consecutive Wednesdays in May from 6.30pm-9.30pm in the Temple Gate Hotel. The aim of the workshop series is to assist business owner/managers to protect and increase profit margins and to create awareness of areas that profit margins may be lost.  The workshop series will cover profit margins within a business that has employees, products and a premises such as any form of retail business. However, many of the principles of profit margin will apply to all businesses.  The series is targeted at owner/managers, supervisors and decision makers within a business.The first workshop will take place on Wednesday, May 9 on the subject of increasing sales.  On Wednesday, May 16, the workshop will …

Four junior pupils from St Flannan’s College have boldly gone on to win second place in their category at the elite NASA/Ames annual space settlement design competition.They will now travel to the International Space Development Conference in Washington DC next month.The competition challenges pupils to engineer and design a self-sufficient space colony capable of housing thousands of inhabitants. The judging criteria is based on their creativity, thoroughness, accuracy, technical merit, attention to detail and background research. The space settlement has to break no physical laws, have a reasonable extrapolation of existing technology, a clean internal environment, minimal leaks and be pragmatic.This has been the best result to date for the Science Club in St Flannan’s College. In 2010, a larger team came third place and in 2011 a different team came in the highly recommended category. The winning team this year is made up of one third-year pupil, Caitlyn Horgan, and three second-year pupils, Mike O’Dea, Peter O’Connell Stack and …

A 14-year-old girl from Barefield is set to prove that just because she cannot walk, she can still become a model. Nicole Norton, who suffers from cerebral palsy and is visually impaired, will have her dreams of come true this Friday with the help of the Share a Dream Foundation.As part of her perfect ‘girlie’ day out, Nicole will get a model makeover and photoshoot as well as becoming an honorary Rose at the 2012 Rose of Clare in the West County. Nicole’s mother Ann said, “It was a friend of Nicole, Jennifer, who is physically disabled, who contacted Share a Dream to put Nicole forward. She wanted her to be a model and to go on a shopping spree. Nicole would be very much a girlie girl. I think it’s just brilliant she will get to go and have a day out without any worries. She is just so excited.”Nicole’s dream starts at 9.45am when she, her mum and …